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THE HERO'S DEEDS AND HARD-WON 
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SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 





SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 

FROM AN ENGRAVING, BY H. ROBINSON, OF ZUCCHERO'S PORTRAIT AT PENSHUR8T. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 



TYPE OF ENGLISH CHIVALRY IN THE 
ELIZABETHAN AGE 



H. R. FOX 'BOURNE 

AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE OF JOHN LOCKE," "ENGLISH SEAMEN UNDER THI 
TUDORS," "ENGLISH MERCHANTS," ETC., ETC. 




G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

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ILLUSTRATIONS. 



SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (FROM AN ENGRAVING, BY H. 
ROBINSON, OF ZUCCHERO's PORTRAIT AT PENS- 
HURST ) ...... Fro?itispiece 

penshurst place, kent, as seen from the garden i 6 

robert dudley, earl of leicester (from an 

engraving in " heroologia anglica ") . . 20 

lady mary sidney (from an engraving by e. 

harding) ........ 24 

sir henry sidney (from an engraving by e. hard- 

ing) 32 

signatures of sir philip sidney (from the origi- 
nals in the record office, london ) . . ?8 

philip sidney and his brother robert as youths 
(from an engraving, by o. lacour, of the 
painting at penshurst) . . . 56 

"CROWN " OF QUEEN ELIZABETH . . . .86 

sir francis walsingham (from an engraving, by 

j. houbraken, of zucchero's portrait) . 94 

walter devereux, first earl of essex (from 

an engraving in lodge's " portraits ") . 104 

ladies' head-dresses of the sixteenth century i io 

baynard's castle, london, with the tower 01? 
old st. Paul's cathedral in the back- 
ground (from an engraving by w. wise) . 138 

xvii 



x v i i i Illustrations. 



LUDLOW CASTLE, SHROPSHIRE (FROM AN OLD EN- 
GRAVING) • ISO 

THE BARONIAL HALL OF PENSHURST PLACE . . I 78 

CORNER OF WILTON HOUSE ..... 186 

EDMUND SPENSER (FROM AN ENGRAVING BY W. B. 

SCOTT, 1839) 196 

THE MINSTRELS' GALLERY IN THE BARONIAL HALL 

OF PENSHURST PLACE 1 98 

MARY HERBERT, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE (FROM 

ZUCCHERO'S PORTRAIT AT PENSHURST) . . 2IO 

FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE (FROM AN ENGRAV- 
ING IN lodge's " portraits") .... 220 

THE GATE AT WHITEHALL (FROM AN ENGRAVING BY 

G. VERTUE) 232 

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (FROM THE MINIATURE BY ISAAC 

OLIVER, AT WINDSOR CASTLE) .... 276 

AMBROSE DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK (FROM AN 

ENGRAVING IN " HEROOLOGIA ANGLICA ") . . 282 

CENTRAL TOWERS, NONSUCH HOUSE . . . 32O 

THE BLACK PINNACE (FROM THOMAS LANT's " PRO- 
CESSION AT THE OBSEQUIES OF SIR PHILIP 
SIDNEY," 1587) . 322 

HEARTH IN THE OLD HALL AT PENSHURST . . 335 

ROBERT DEVEREUX, SECOND EARL OF ESSEX (FROM 

AN ENGRAVING IN LODGE'S " PORTRAITS ") . 340 

SIDNEY'S TREE 350 





T^HIS volume is partly based on my 
|\ " Memoir of Sir Philip Sidney," 
4! which was published in 1862. I 
have gladly availed myself of the 
publishers' permission to re-tell 
the story, with the addition of many 
details which the researches of others 
during the past quarter of a century have 
brought to light, or which I have myself 
been fortunate enough to come across. 
But, while what had already been said in terms that 
did not call for alteration has been reproduced, this 
is substantially a new book. Some matters previ- 
ously enlarged upon have been lightly dealt with; 
much fresh information has been presented ; and the 
book has been written throughout on lines consistent 
with the general plan of the " Heroes of the Nations " 
series. 

The effort has been to bring into prominence, and 
to keep always in view, but without exaggeration 
or distortion, the chivalrous aspect of Sir Philip Sid- 
ney's life, and its relations in that aspect with the 
history of his time and country, with the contem- 
poraries among whom he moved, who influenced 



vi Preface. 

him and who were influenced by him. Had space 
allowed, some biographical incidents of minor 
importance here passed by or briefly disposed of 
would have been more closely handled, and much 
more would, perhaps with advantage, have been said 
about Sidney's surroundings. But I have endeav- 
oured to draw a true and not incomplete picture 
of him as a type of English chivalry in the Eliza- 
bethan age. 

I am anxious to retract, and make such amends 
as I can for, one grave fault in the earlier volume. 
Careful thought and investigation have led me to 
repudiate the view there taken of the " Astrophel and 
Stella " episode ; that is, of Sidney's connection with 
Lady Penelope Devereux, afterwards Lady Rich, and 
of the circumstances in which she became the hero- 
ine of his sonnets. A blunder in noting down a 
wrong date, and consequently supposing that Lady 
Penelope's betrothal and marriage to Lord Rich took 
place in 1580 instead of 1 581, partly misled me. This 
is all the more to be regretted because some critics 
and biographers, who were not aware of my error as 
to the date, appear to have been led thereby to over- 
step the conclusions I drew from it. 

In a volume like the present it would be pedantic 
to vouch in footnotes for every statement made. 
But, in justice both to myself and to the reader, 
precise references have been made to the sources of 
actually fresh information about Sidney's life ; and 
it will be seen that the references are not few or 
unimportant. For the rest, my principal authority 
is the " Memoir" already mentioned, in which the 



Preface. 



Vli 



vouchers for details are carefully given ; but I grate- 
fully acknowledge indebtedness to several authors 
and editors who have incidentally contributed to the 
elucidation of episodes and connections in Sidney's 
life. The books that I have found most helpful are 
included in the subjoined list. 

H. R. Fox Bourne. 

London, 17 October, 1891. 





LIST OF PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES (EXCLUSIVE OF 
MS. COLLECTIONS), IN ORDER OF CHRONOLOGY. 



" Holinshed's Chronicles," vol. iii. (containing brief memoirs of 
Sir Henry Sidney, Lady Mary Sidney, and Sir Philip Sidney), 1587. 

" The Procession at the Obsequies of Sir Philip Sidney," by 
Thomas Lant, 1587. 

" The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia," written by Sir Philip 
Sidney, 1590. * 

"Sir P. S. ; his Astrophel and Stella," 1591. 

"The Defence of Poesy," by Sir Philip Sidney, 1595 (another 
edition in the same year, entitled " An Apology for Poetry "). 

" The Life of the Renowned Sir Philip Sidney," by Fulke Gre- 
ville, Lord Brooke, 1652. 

" Letters and Memorials of State, Written and Collected by Sir 
Henry Sidney, the Famous Sir Philip Sidney, and his Brother Sir 
Robert Sidney . . . also Memoirs of the Lives and Actions of 
the Sidneys," edited by Arthur Collins, 1745. 

" Langueti Epistolce ad P. Sidneium," edited by Lord Hailes, 
1776. 

" Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Sir Philip Sidney," by Dr. 
Thomas Zouch, 1808. 

"Royal Progresses of Queen Elizabeth," edited by John Nichols, 
1823. 

" The Miscellaneous Works of Sir Philip Sidney," edited, with a 
prefatory memoir, by William Gray, 1829. 

"Sidneiana," edited by Bishop Butler, for the Roxburgh Club, 
1837. 

"Queen Elizabeth and Her Times," edited by Thomas Wright, 
1838. 



List of Principal Authorities. 



" Correspondence of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in 1585 
and 1586," edited by John Bruce, for the Camden Society, 1844. 

" The Correspondence of Sir Philip Sidney with Hubert Languet," 
translated and edited, with a prefatory memoir, by S. A. Pears, 1845. | 

" Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex," by the Hon. 
W. B. Devereux, 1853. 

" The Ulster Journal of Archaeology," vols, ii., iii., v., and viii. 
(containing "Sir Henry Sidney's Memoir of his Government of 
Ireland," edited by Herbert F. Hore), 1854-1860. 

"Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reigns of 
Edward VI. , Mary, and Elizabeth," edited by Robert Lemon and 
Mary Everett Green, vols, i., ii., vii. and xii., 1856-1872. 

" Calendar of State Papers Relating to Scotland," edited by Mark- 
bam John Thorpe, vol. i., 1858. 

"Calendar of State Papers Relating to Ireland," edited by Hans 
Claude Hamilton, vols, i.-iii., 1860-1865. 

"Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of 
Elizabeth," edited by Joseph Stevenson and Allan James Crosby, 
vols, i.-ix., 1863-1880. 

"Calendar of the Carew Papers," edited by J. S. Brewer and 
William Bullen, vols. i. and ii., 1867, 1868. 

"Appendices to Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commis- 
sion " (especially those describing the MSS. in the possession of Lord 
de LTsle, the Marquis of Salisbury, the Duke of Rutland, and the 
Marquis of Bath), 1 873-1889. 




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CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

PRELIMINARY I 

Chivalry in the Middle Ages — Its altered condition in Tudor 
times — Sir Philip Sidney as a type of Elizabethan chivalry — 
His grandfathers, Sir William Sidney and John Dudley, 
Duke of Northumberland — His parents and other kinsfolk 
— Sir Henry Sidney under Edward VI. — His marriage with 
Lady Mary Dudley — His share in the Lady Jane Grey plot 
— His peace-making with Queen Mary. 

CHAPTER II. 
during philip Sidney's boyhood (1554-1568) . 15 

Philip Sidney's birth — Penshurst — His parents' occupations 
— Sir Henry Sidney's early service in Ireland — Lady Sidney 
at Court with her brother, the Earl of Leicester — Their 
relations with Queen Elizabeth — Sir Henry's work as Lord 
President of Wales and in other ways — Lady Sidney's small- 
pox — Philip as a Clerk in Holy Orders — His schooling at 
Shrewsbury — His parents' letters to him — His father's expe- 
riences as Lord Deputy of Ireland, 

CHAPTER III. 

UNDERGRADUATE YEARS (1568-1572) ... 37 

Philip Sidney at Oxford — His tutors and companions — The 
Earl of Leicester's and Sir William Cecil's patronage — 
" The Darling Philip " and Cecil's " Sweet Jewel," Anne — 



XI 1 



Contents. 



AGE 



The project of a marriage-contract between them — Its aban- 
donment — After leaving Oxford — The "hard distress" of 
the Sidneys — Another marriage project. 

CHAPTER IV. 

A VISIT TO PARIS (1572) 57 

The Earl of Lincoln's mission to France — Philip Sidney's 
share in it — His experiences in Paris before and during the 
St. Bartholomew Massacre. 

CHAPTER V. 

FOREIGN SCHOOLING (1572— 1575) .... 65 

Philip Sidney at Frankfort — His introduction to Hubert 
Languet — With Languet in Vienna — A trip to Hungary — 
Correspondence with Languet — Studies in Italy — Life in 
Venice — Political outlooks — In Vienna again — Return to 
England. 

CHAPTER VI. 

WITH QUEEN ELIZABETH'S COURT (1575 — 1576) . 87 

Introduction to Court life — The Earl of Leicester and other 
courtiers — Sir Christopher Hatton — The Earl of Oxford — 
Edward Dyer — Lord Burghley — Sir Francis Walsingham — 
"The princely pleasures at Kenilworth " — At Chartley 
Castle — First meeting with Stella — A winter in London — 
The first Earl of Essex — Philip's friendship with him — A 
holiday in Ireland — The death of the Earl of Essex — The 
project of a marriage between Philip and Lady Penelope 
Devereux. 

CHAPTER VII. 

WORK AS AMBASSADOR ( 1 57?) . . . .Ill 

Philip Sidney's mission to Germany — The state of European 
politics at the time — Sidney's dream of a Protestant league 
—His interviews with the Emperor Rudolph, the Elector 
Palatine, John Casimir, and others — Further intercourse 
with Languet — A visit to William of Orange — " No small 
arguments of great hope." 



Contents. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FAGE 

AS SON AND COURTIER (1577-1578) . . . 129 

The marriage of Philip's sister Mary to the Earl of Pem- 
broke — Philip at Wilton and in London — Sir Henry Sidney's 
fresh troubles — Philip's championship of his cause — Other 
occupations at Court — Du Plessis-Mornay and other friends 
— Exchange of New Year's gifts with the Queen — In at- 
tendance during the royal progresses — " The Lady of May " 
at Wanstead — Entertainments at Nonsuch and Audley End 
— A reproof from Edmund Molyneux — Sir Henry and Lady 
Sidney's difficulties. 

CHAPTER IX. 

META INCOGNITA (1576-1578) .... 151 

The beginnings of English colonising enterprise — Martin 
Frobisher's expeditions — Sidney's share in them — His 
"Indian project" — Talked-of employment in the Nether- 
lands — Languet's advice. 

CHAPTER X. 

IN COURT LIVERY (1578-1580) . . . 168 

An office-holder under the Queen — Not ready to marry — 
John Casimir in England — Entertainments at Court — Robert 
Sidney — Queen Elizabeth's project of marriage with the 
Duke of Anjou — Philip Sidney's opposition to it — His 
quarrel with the Earl of Oxford — His letter to the Queen — 
In disgrace. 

CHAPTER XL 

THE AREOPAGUS (1578-1580) .... 187 

Sidney's literary training — The influence of Roger Ascham 
and others upon him — Old playwrights and players — Robert 
Langham and Richard Tarleton — Sidney's friendship with 
Gabriel Harvey and Edmund Spenser — The Areopagus — 
"The Shepherd's Calendar" — " The Defence of Poesy" — 
Sidney's relations with Spenser. 



x iv Contents. 



CHAPTER XII. 

PAGE 

AT WILTON (1580) 209 

The Countess of Pembroke — Sidney's longest visit to her — 
His occupations at Wilton — " The Arcadia" — Its evidence 
of Sidney's temperament — Other Wilton exercises — Helping 
Spenser. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

AT COURT AGAIN (1580-15S2) .... 222 

Sidney's reinstatement in Queen Elizabeth's favour — The 
political situation — In need of money — Sir Henry Sidney's 
affairs — Philip as a Member of Parliament — Court gaieties 
— Entertaining the French ambassadors — " The Foster- 
Children of Desire " — Lady Penelope Devereux's marriage 
— " Astrophel and Stella " — Sidney's bearing towards Lady 
Rich — Spenser's " Rightful Courtier" — A suitor for impro- 
priations — The Duke of Anjou in England — Sidney's visit 
to Antwerp — The death of Languet. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

IN THE WORLD OF LETTERS (1580-1583) . . 254 

Sidney's place in English literary history — " The Defence 
of Poesy" — "The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia" — 
"Astrophel and Stella" — Other writings — The friend and 
patron of authors. 

CHAPTER XV. 

NEW OCCUPATIONS (1582-1585) .... 278 
Prospects of work for the State — Knightage — Sidney's mar- 
riage with Frances Walsingham — Miscellaneous occupations 
— Friendship with Giordano Bruno — Proposed share in 
American colonisation. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

IN THE WORLD OF POLITICS (1584-1585) . . 30O 

Sidney's projected mission to France — His views as to the 
political situation and its exigencies — In Parliament again 



Contents. 



XV 



PAGE 

— Scottish affairs — The Master of Gray — Sidney as Master 
of the Ordnance — The Low Countries deputation — Queen 
Elizabeth's help to the Netherlanders — Sidney's West Indian 
project — His relations with Drake — His appointment to the 
governorship of Flushing. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

IN THE LOW COUNTRIES (1585, 1586) . . . 321 

Flushing and its governor — The Earl of Leicester as Lord 
Lieutenant in the Netherlands — Sidney's appeals and pro- 
tests — " Called ambitious and proud" — Preliminary fighting 
— The capture of Axel — The deaths of Sir Henry and Lady 
Sidney. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE LAST WEEKS (1586) $$6 

Sidney's difficulties in the Netherlands — The battle of Zut- 
phen — Sidney's share in it — His death-wound — The sick-bed 
at*Arnhem — Sidney's will — His death. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

SUPPLEMENTARY 35 I 

Mourning for Sir Philip Sidney — His burial — His survivors 
— The three examples of Elizabethan chivalry — " A true 
model of worth." - 

INDEX 365 




SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: 

TYPE OF ENGLISH CHIVALRY IN THE 
ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELIMINARY. 

^^| HE chivalry that grew up in 
Europe as part of the feudal 
system, giving it much of its 
strength and most of its adorn- 
ment, was never so firmly estab- 
lished in England as in France 
or in some other countries. 
And among Englishmen- the mediaeval institution 
was broken down during the Wars of the Roses, 
about a century before Sir Philip Sidney was ad- 
dressed by Edmund Spenser, and honoured by all 
whose honour was worth having in his day, as 

the president 
Of nobless and of chivalry. 




Sir Philip Sidney. 



The chivalry of the Elizabethan age, of which 
Sidney was the most complete and conspicuous 
type, was in some respects out of date, in others 
immature. It strove to conform to traditions and 
to follow methods unsuited to the altered and alter- 
ing arrangements of society in sixteenth-century 
England. Adapting itself as best it could to these 
arrangements, it found or sought its ideals in the 
past ; yet all its dignity came from the efforts of 
its heroes to help on the great change from mediaeval 
to modern ways of thought and action, and to reshape 
the old ideals in forms proper for the future. Its 
successes and failures, its illusions and exploits, are 
as distinctly characteristic of the transition period 
in English history during which it showed itself as 
were the political and religious crises, the intellectual 
and literary upheavals, contemporary and intimately 
connected with it. 

The earlier chivalry was the crown of feudalism. 
The military service that sovereigns claimed as a 
mere matter of duty from their tenants and vassals 
was in it supplemented by the like or the more 
laborious and more ennobling service that knights 
and courtiers voluntarily rendered, in excess of loy- 
alty to their masters or of fondness for martial deeds 
and for the fame thus won. 

The knight's devotion to his immediate lord was 
the first motive, and thereby kingdoms and princi- 
palities were set up and enlarged, or crippled and 
overturned. In England, all that chivalry did in 
this direction was to maintain and expand the power 



Chivalry in the Middle Ages. 3 

of the Norman and Plantagenet monarchs, to aid 
them in their invasions of Wales, Ireland, Scotland, 
and France, and their occasional crusading to more 
distant lands, until, after nearly four centuries, the 
feud between Yorkists and Lancastrians arose, and, 
giving a death-blow to mediaeval systems, pre- 
pared the way for Tudor rule. But in France and 
the neighbouring countries, where there were almost 
constant rivalry and struggle for supremacy among 
the fragments of the Holy Roman Empire and 
of Charlemagne's dominion, chivalry had a busier 
and more variable part to play ; and instances are 
numberless of English knights, without sufficient 
occupation under their own sovereigns, taking tem- 
porary service in foreign lands, and, in humble ways, 
anticipating and striving to emulate the achievements 
of the Chevalier Bayard, the greatest and among 
greater men the latest of the heroes of mediaeval 
chivalry. 

Religion was, of course, closely mixed up with 
chivalry ; and chivalry itself became a religion. This 
we see not only in the memorable crusades against 
the Saracens, by his participation in which Richard 
Cceur-de-Lion earned all his title to renown, but also 
in the history of the Knights Templars, the Order of 
St. John, and other old fighting guilds. 

An aspect of chivalry not to be forgotten, moreover, 
and much to its credit, was the respect that, in its 
better days, it caused to be paid to the female sex. 
The homage rendered to women, under its rules, 
may have been often spurious and superficial; but 
it had notable effect in advancing social progress. 



Sir Philip Sidney. 



And with gallantry towards women went other 
refinements of life. There was not much tender- 
ness or humanity towards inferiors. The world of 
mediaeval chivalry was narrow and selfish. The base 
multitude had no acknowledged claim to generous 
treatment, and the many were supposed to exist 
only as chattels for the benefit of the few. The 
vulgar herd gained little by the civilisation that 
was introduced in courts and castles. But it gained 
something and the world gained more. 

If in the encouragement given to tyranny, cruelty, 
lasciviousness, and much else, there was an ugly side 
or a yet uglier background to the fabric, the better 
side or the agreeable front appears in the great 
advance made between the twelfth and fifteenth 
centuries in those notions of loyalty and courtesy, 
the duty of keeping faith with princes and comrades 
and of avoiding all unknightly vices, which rendered 
it possible for Europe to emerge from the dark ages 
and to enter on the broader path of progress which 
has been opened up in modern times. The rec- 
ords of Froissart and Sainte Palaye, the epics and 
romances and ballads and lays of famous and of un- 
known writers, show us much to deride and condemn, 
but also much to admire and reverence, in the insti- 
tution that Cervantes justly mocked at when it had 
ceased to be of use. 

In England the traditions of mediaeval chivalry 
chiefly survived under the Tudors in the jousts and 
tournaments that were favoured by Henry the 
Eighth, and yet more by Queen Elizabeth ; and 
they gave a tone and colour to serious pursuits, as 



Chivalry in Tudor Times. 5 

well as pastimes, when there was no mimic warfare 
to be engaged in at Court and in baronial halls. 
But knight-errantry was not extinct. We shall see 
Sidney pining for it, and it was freely practised by 
Raleigh and many others in his day. One of the 
problems that Sidney and his peers had to solve, if 
they could, was how to give new form and fresh 
dignity to knight-errantry ; how to develop a chiv- 
alry which should be true to the old traditions, and 
yet, retaining the old virtues of loyalty and courtesy, 
courage and justice, should be serviceable to the 
England that was called upon, as the champion of 
Protestantism and all the political, social, and intel- 
lectual revolts incident to the Protestant rebellion, 
to take a bolder position than heretofore among the 
nations of Europe. 

It is by viewing him as the type of such chivalry 
as was aimed at and was possible in the Elizabethan 
age that we shall best understand Sir Philip Sidney's 
character, and most truly comprehend not merely 
the projects and ambitions, the achievements and 
the disappointments of his own short life, but also 
the conditions of success and of failure to which 
others in his day, more or less resembling him or 
differing from him, alike in temperament and in 
circumstances, were subjected. 

Sidney, it must be noted, was barely four years 
old when Elizabeth became queen of England. 
Elizabeth had been nearly seventeen years on the 
throne before he took a man's place at her Court ; 
and after his death she reigned through nearly seven- 
teen other years. It was only during the inter- 



Sir Philip Sidney, 



mediate term of less than a dozen years, from 1575 
to 1586, that he moved in and out of her presence 
as the foremost representative of English chivalry at 
that time, all the more its representative because his 
years of service were years of thraldom. Whatever 
he did for good was done in spite of the courtly 
chains imposed upon him. Posterity may be grate- 
ful to Queen Elizabeth for her administration of 
English affairs during nearly half a century ; for 
coincident with that administration, if not consequent 
upon it, was a vast increase of power and prosperity 
to England. But if her rule was favourable to the 
chivalrous movements of the day, they were not 
favoured by her. 

To know what Sidney was as an Elizabethan 
courtier, and what were the restraints laid upon him 
in his compulsory courtiership, we must review not 
merely the events of his own early career, but also 
some matters preliminary to any information we 
have about him beyond the bare date of his birth. 

Among the minor statesmen of Henry the Eighth's 
reign were two grandfathers of Sir Philip Sidney. 
The one was Sir William Sidney, born in 1482, and 
descended from another William Sidney, who came 
over from Anjou with Henry Plantagenet in 11 54, 
and was the founder of a worthy family of knights 
and squires. The other was John Dudley, born in 
1 501, who claimed descent from Robert de LTsle, a 
partisan of the barons in their opposition to King 
John. Lady Elizabeth Grey, sister of a Baron de 
L'Isle, had married the Edmund Dudley who was 



His Grandfathers. 



Richard Empson's colleague in assisting Henry the 
Seventh's reckless appropriations of other people's 
wealth, and of whom Bacon said that " he was an 
eminent man, and one who could put hateful busi- 
ness into good language." This Dudley was be- 
headed, and his estates were forfeited, in 1509. But 
his son John, only eight years old at that time, grew 
up to win for himself wealth and rank and royal 
favour — and ultimate disgrace. " I am a Dudley in 
blood," Philip Sidney wrote, in 1585, with excess of 
courtliness, " and do acknowledge — though, in all 
truth, I may justly affirm that I am, by my father's 
side, of ancient and always well-esteemed and well- 
matched gentry — yet I do acknowledge, I say, that 
my chiefest honour is to be a Dudley." There was 
less honour in being a Dudley than in being a 
Sidney. 

All through the reign of Henry the Eighth Sir 
William Sidney was a zealous servant of the State ; 
and during a large part of it he held office as the 
King's chamberlain. He was one of the command- 
ers of an English force sent in 15 10 to aid Ferdinand 
of Spain in his war with the Moors ; and he was off 
Brest in the squadron that made havoc of the great 
fleet of France in 15 13. Knighted for his share in 
that sea-fight, he was next employed on land. In 
the same year he commanded the right wing of the 
army which was victorious on Flodden Field. Much 
other work, as warrior, diplomatist, and courtier, fell 
to him during the ensuing forty years, and the last 
of the many rewards bestowed upon him was a grant 
by Henry the Eighth's son, in 1552, of the old castle 



8 Sir Philip Sidney, 

and lands of Penshurst, in Kent, famous in the 
hands of his descendants. 

But Sir William Sidney's progress, though surer 
and more honest, was less rapid and brilliant than 
that of John Dudley, his associate in King Henry's 
service, and his junior by nineteen years. John 
Dudley so successfully pushed his fortunes under 
Henry that in 1543 he was made Baron de L'Isle 
and Lord High Admiral of England; and in 1547 
he was appointed one of the executors under the 
King's will, to administer the affairs of the realm 
during Edward's minority. Of the other executors 
Lord Hertford was chief, and when Hertford con- 
trived to be made Lord Protector and Duke of 
Somerset, Dudley aided his ambitious schemes on 
condition that he also should be raised in rank and 
invested with much arbitrary power. Dudley was 
created Earl of Warwick. How his show of friend- 
ship with Lord Protector Somerset soon gave way 
to open feud and desperate intrigue, until by Somer- 
set's overthrow he acquired absolute control in 
1550, and made himself Duke of Northumberland 
in 1 55 1, need not be detailed. Here it mainly con- 
cerns us to remember that for a while he was the 
most powerful man in England, labouring most 
unscrupulously for his own aggrandisement and, in 
so far as selfish ambition left room for fatherly 
affection, for the advancement of his sons and 
daughters. 

Of these, besides one who died young, there were 
seven — John, Ambrose, Robert, Guildford, Henry, 
Mary, and Catherine — whose ages in 1547 ranged 



His Parents and Other Kinsfolk. 9 

from nineteen to eleven. Edward the Sixth was 
not yet ten when in that year he became king. 
His sister Elizabeth was fourteen, and the other sis- 
ter, Mary, was one-and-thirty. Henry the Eighth's 
younger children and the children of Dudley had 
been playmates ; and close friendship continued 
after the change of monarchs, especially, it would 
seem, between little Lady Mary Dudley, who was to 
be the mother of Sir Philip Sidney, and the Princess 
Elizabeth. There was yet closer intimacy between 
this princess's brother and Philip's other parent. 

Sir Henry Sidney, who was born on the 20th of 
July, 1529, tells us that at the age of nine he was 
appointed henchman to King Henry, and he adds : 
" I was by that most famous king put to his sweet 
son, Prince Edward, my most dear master, prince 
and sovereign ; my near kinswoman being his only 
nurse, my father being his chamberlain, my mother 
his governess, and my aunt by my mother's side in 
such place as, among meaner personages, is called a 
dry-nurse — for, from the time he left sucking, she 
continually lay in bed with him, so long as he re- 
mained in women's government. As the prince 
grew in years and discretion, so grew I in favour 
and liking of him." Henry Sidney's mother, it may 
be noted, was Anne, a daughter of Sir William 
Pagenham, who died in 1543. Henry was the only 
son, but he had four sisters, all of whom married 
well. Mary, the eldest, became the wife of Sir 
William Dormer. The husbands of the other three, 
Lucy, Anne, and Frances, were Sir James Harring- 
ton, Sir William Fitzwilliam, and Thomas Rat- 



io Sir Philip Sidney. 

cliffe, Lord Fitzwalter, who became third Earl of 
Sussex in 1542. It was this Earl of Sussex's widow, 
Henry Sidney's sister, who by bequest founded 
Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge in 1598. 

Sir William Sidney, who died at Penshurst in 
February, 1554, at the age of seventy-two, appears 
to have spent his last few years in retirement ; but 
his son prospered as he rose to man's estate amid 
the political and religious squabbles, the personal 
ambitions, and the base intrigues which harassed 
England while Edward bore the" title of king, and 
which gave place to worse troubles when the crown 
passed to Mary. 

Soon after Edward's accession Henry Sidney was 
appointed one of the four principal Gentlemen of 
the King's Bedchamber — partly, according to the 
quaint report in Holinshed's Chronicle, on account 
of his royal friend's affection for him, partly be- 
cause, "by reason of his comeliness of person, 
gallantness of spirit, virtue, quality, beauty, and 
good composition of body," he was reputed " the 
only odd man and paragon of the Court." In favour 
with Lord Protector Somerset, he lost nothing by 
Somerset's overthrow. In 1 5 5 1 he was knighted in 
company with William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burgh- 
ley, who was by nine years his senior. In that year, 
and again in 1552, he was sent on special missions to 
France ; and on another occasion he went as ambas- 
sador to Scotland. Among the less onerous offices 
bestowed upon him were those of chief cupbearer 
to the King and of royal cypherer, the latter en- 
titling him to an annual stipend of £33 6s. $d. 



Sir Henry and Lady Mary Sidney. 1 1 

" The only odd man and paragon of the Court " 
in Edward the Sixth's day was thought well of, not 
merely as a courtier, but also as a rising statesman. 
There is particular evidence of this in the fact that 
the unscrupulous Duke of Northumberland chose 
him, or at any rate accepted him, as a husband for 
his eldest daughter. On the 29th of March, 1 55 1, 
when she was about sixteen years old, and he not 
yet two-and-twenty, Lady Mary Dudley was married 
to Sir Henry Sidney. The ceremony appears to have 
been then private, as it is recorded that the mar- 
riage was " afterwards most publicly and honourably 
solemnised in Ely Place, Holborn, in the Whitsun- 
holidays next following."* 

In all the records we have of the union which 
thus began, and which lasted during thirty-five 
years, we find no trace of discord, nothing but 
tender affection on both sides, mutual help and 
mutual admiration ; and, as the two must have been 
well acquainted with one another for a long while 
before the wedding, we may suppose that it was 
partly a love-match. But it was evidently sanc- 
tioned by the Duke of Northumberland, if not or- 
dered, on grounds of expediency. Soon afterwards 
Northumberland married his other daughter, Cath- 
erine, to Lord Hastings, son of the Earl of Hunt- 
ingdon, and in May, 1553, in furtherance of his 

* A MS. Psalter of Sir Henry Sidney's, now in the Library 01 
Trinity College, Cambridge, from which the above and other extracts 
were communicated by Mr. W. Aldis Wright to " Miscellanea Gen- 
ealogica et Heraldica," part i. (April, 1870). This authority, in 
important particulars correcting some hitherto accepted dates, will in 
future be referred to as " Sir Henry Sidney's Psalter." 



12 Sir Philip Sidney. 

criminal project for retaining the mastery of English 
affairs, he made his son, Lord Guildford Dudley, 
husband of Lady Jane Grey. He would not have 
taken Sir Henry Sidney for son-in-law had he not 
deemed it prudent to attach firmly to the Dudley 
faction King Edward's cherished companion. As 
for Sir Henry, it is but reasonable to assume that 
the charms of Lady Mary were rendered all the 
more acceptable by the fact that her father was the 
mightiest statesman of the day. But the immediate 
issues to him, as courtier and politician, were none 
the less disastrous because there may have been 
included in them such increase of social and official 
dignity as his father-in-law could procure for him 
during the brief remainder of Edward the Sixth's 
lifetime.* 

Throughout this period young Sidney appears to 
have been one of the dupes or willing tools of the 
wily but self-ruining Northumberland. A curious 
document, dated the 18th of May, 1553, just a week 
before Lord Guildford Dudley's marriage with Lady 
Jane Grey, authorised Sidney, in the King's name, 
to put in livery fifty gentlemen and yeomen as re- 
tainers in his service, and also forgave him " all his 
trespasses, forfeitures, penalties, outstanding debts, 
and whatsoever else amiss was by him done or per- 
petrated since King Edward's coronation day." 
The King's illness had warned Northumberland that 

* On 25 July, 1552, the Duke of Northumberland wrote from 
Carlisle to Sir Henry Sidney, bidding him "make haste to Court 
before you go home to your wife," important business having to be 
attended to. — State Papers, Domestic, Addenda, vol. iv., No. 8. 



The Lady Jane Grey Plot. 13 

unless he could prevent the accession of the Princess 
Mary, next heir to the crown under Henry the 
Eighth's will, he would soon be driven from power ; 
and at this time he was busily plotting against 
Mary. On the 21st of June he persuaded Edward 
to sign letters-patent transferring the inheritance to 
Lady Jane Grey. In the long list of signatures to 
that document is included the name of Sir Henry 
Sidney,* who may have considered that in joining 
company with all the privy councillors and prelates 
and judges, he was but performing a duty to his 
dying friend — the friend who a fortnight later died 
in Sir Henry's arms, with this prayer on his lips, 
" Oh, my Lord God, defend this realm from papistry, 
and maintain thy true religion ! " But whatever 
were Sidney's motives or excuses for taking part in 
the scheme against Mary, he soon repented. The 
proclamation of Lady Jane as queen on the 10th of 
July having been followed on the 20th by proclama- 
tion of Mary's queenship, he was one of the seven 
who, on the 21st, took the lead in tendering submis- 
sion to the new sovereign, and in seeking and obtain- 
ing pardon for having attempted to injure her.f 

Thus avoiding ruin by action that, if allowable, 
was hardly praiseworthy, Sir Henry Sidney had to 
look on while others suffered for the folly or the 
crime he had been led to countenance. On the 25th 
of July his father-in-law and four of his brothers-in- 
law — John, who had been made Earl of Warwick, 



* " Chronicles of Queen Jane and Queen Mary " (Camden Society), 
p. 10. 

f Ibid., p. 13. 



14 Sir Philip Sidney. 

Lord Ambrose Dudley, Lord Robert Dudley, and 
Lord Guildford Dudley — were imprisoned in the 
Tower of London. Northumberland was beheaded 
on the 22d of August, and on the 12th of February, 
1554, the same fate befell Guildford Dudley and his 
young wife, the one blameless victim in the tragedy. 
The other Dudleys obtained forgiveness after more 
than a year's imprisonment, but the eldest died on 
the 2 1st of October, 1554, within three days of his 
liberation. In the previous February, moreover, 
Sir William Sidney had died at Penshurst, in taking 
possession of Avhich at such a time, Sir Henry and 
his fair wife can have had small happiness. 

But Sir Henry Sidney had made his peace with 
the new sovereign, and although, as he tells us, 
" neither liking nor liked as he had been," he contin- 
ued in the service of the State. On the 14th of 
March, 1554, not long after he had buried his father, 
he started for Spain as companion of the Earl of 
Bedford, on an embassy to King Philip, " to fetch 
him into this realm."* The task was accomplished 
in time for the wedding of Queen Mary and King 
Philip to take place at Winchester in the following 
July, and doubtless Sir Henry was present at the 
ceremony. By a charter dated the 8th of November 
in the same year, all his former offices and honours 
were confirmed to him, and it was partly through 
his influence and intercession that his brothers-in- 
law were released from the Tower. 

* " Chronicles of Queen Jane and Queen Mary," p. 68. 




CHAPTER II. 




DURING PHILIP SIDNEY S BOYHOOD. 

1 5 54- 1 568. 

.2jS*^$a^W HILIP SIDNEY was born at 
Penshurst on Friday the 30th 
of November, 1554, being christ- 
ened Philip in honour of the 
husband of Queen Mary, whom 
his father had escorted to Eng- 
land a few months before. King 
Philip was himself one of the 
godfathers, the other being John Russell, Earl of 
Bedford ; and for godmother the boy had his lately 
widowed grandparent, " the most virtuous Lady 
Jane, Duchess of Northumberland." * 

Pleasantly situated in the valley of the Medway, 
and but a few hours' ride from London, Penshurst 
was as restful a place as might be found for Sir 

* Sir Henry Sidney's Psalter. The date always hitherto given for 
Philip's birth is the 29th of November ; but the entry in the Psalter is 
authoritative. According to it the event occurred at " a quarter before 
five in the morning." 

15 



1 6 Sir Philip Sidney. [1554- 

Henry Sidney to retire to when he could be spared 
from Court or was not on business farther away; 
a place in which his young wife might shake off her 
troubles in looking after their little son, and a little 
daughter, Margaret, who was born eighteen months 
later, but did not live to be two years old. Although 

That taller tree, which of a nut was set 
At his great birth where all the muses met, 

no longer stands on the Dryad-haunted mount in the 
romantic grounds 

Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made, 
Beneath the broad beech and the chestnut shade, 

it is safe to guess that Philip, tenderly nurtured and 
wisely trained, passed his baby days in and about 
the fourteenth-century castle, of which, even after it 
had been enlarged and adorned by Sir Henry Sidney 
in 1580, Ben Jonson said, 

Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show 
Of touch * or marble, nor canst boast a row 
Of polished pillars or a roof of gold ; 
Thou hast no lantern, whereof tales are told, 
Or stair, or courts, but stand'st an ancient pile, 
And — these grudged at — art reverenced the while. 
Thou joy'st in better marks of soil, of air, 
Of wood, of water ; therein art thou fair. 

All those " marks " the poet's verse helps us to 
see as they were three centuries ago, and as they are 
with very little change to-day ; the undulating ex- 

* " Touch" was a costly stone, hard and black, used as " touch- 
stone " in testing gold. 




«E 



Is 



< i 

„ i- 



CO ^ 
gg 

UJ 

Q_ HI 



1568] His Early Surroundings. ij 

panse in which woods and copse were stocked with 
deer, in which the " lower land " was stored with 
sheep and kine and horses, and through which the 
" high-swoll'n Medway " gracefully curved. Then, 
as he added, 

Then hath thy orchard fruit, thy garden flowers, 

Fresh as the air, and new as are the hours ; 

The early cherry, with the later plum, 

Fig, grape, and quince, each in his time doth come ; 

The blushing apricot and woolly peach 

Hang on thy walls that every child may reach — 

with little Philip as one of the children ; 

And though thy walls be of the country stone, 

They 're reared with no man's ruin, no man's groan ; 

There 's none that dwell about them wish them down, 

But all come in, the farmer and the clown, 

And no one empty-handed, to salute 

Thy lord and lady, though they have no suit. * 

Sir Henry and Lady Sidney had four other chil- 
dren, besides an infant, apparently the first-born, 
who seems to have died too soon to be even christ- 
ened, and Margaret, who died and was buried at 
Penshurst in 1558. Another daughter, Ambrosia, 
who lived to be fifteen, was born at Hampton Court 
in October, 1560, and had Queen Elizabeth for her 
godmother, f Yet another, Mary, afterwards Count- 
ess of Pembroke, was born at Ticknell, near Bewdley, 

* The lord whom, with -his lady, Ben Jonson honoured was not Sir 
Henry Sidney, but his younger son Robert, afterwards Earl of 
Leicester. Yet the praise was perhaps more appropriate to Sir Henry 
and his good wife than to their son and daughter-in-law. 

f State Papers, Foreign, Elizabeth ; Henry Killigrew to Throck- 
morton, 10 October, 1560. 



1 8 Sir Philip Sidney. [1554- 

on the 27th of October, 1561. There were two sons 
who outlived Philip : Robert, destined to perpetuate 
the family name, who was born on the 19th of Novem- 
ber, 1563 ; and Thomas, born on the 25th of March, 
1569, of whom very little is known.* 

We have no record concerning Philip's early child- 
hood, but the first few years, it may be assumed, 
were passed at Penshurst with his nurses and his 
tutors, his little sisters, and his parents now and 
then. His father can rarely have been at home, and 
his mother, after 1558, at any rate, was often kept 
away by court duties. 

In the summer of 1556 Sir Henry was sent to 
Ireland with a convoy of treasure and munitions of 
war for the assistance of his brother-in-law, the Earl 
of Sussex, then Lord Deputy f ; and he remained 
there throughout the second and worse half of 
Mary's reign. In Ireland, if he had some ugly work 
to do as sharer in blundering efforts to crush vio- 
lence by violence, he was free from personal contact 
with the more cruel and hateful business then being 
done in England under a pretence of zeal for reli- 
gion. The office to which he was appointed was 
that of Vice-Treasurer and Governor-General of the 
Royal Revenues in Ireland ; but he also, as he said, 
" had the leading of both horsemen and footmen, 
and served as ordinarily with them as any other pri- 
vate captain did there." On one occasion, as com- 
mander of a force sent against the rebellious Scots 
of Ulster, he slew with his own hand their leader, 

* Sir Henry Sidney's Psalter. 

f " Historical Manuscripts Commission Reports" ; vol. v., p. 343. 



1568] His Parents and His Uncles. ig 

James McConnell. When, in 1557, the Earl of Sus- 
sex returned to England for a holiday, Sir Henry 
was promoted to be a Lord Justice, acting for the 
Lord Deputy in his absence ; and his holding of 
that post was ratified, in November, 1558, on Eliza- 
beth succeeding Mary as queen. Thereafter, as well 
as before, moreover, he enjoyed other offices or sine- 
cures, one of the more curious, granted as a compli- 
ment or by way of attaching him to the English 
Court, being that of Sergeant of Her Majesty's 
Otter Hounds. For serving in this capacity he 
drew a stipend of £28 2s. &d. a year.* 

Queen Mary's death, delivering England from 
many grievous evils, brought speedy and important 
change to Sir Henry's wife and some of her kins- 
folk. In 1557 she lost another of her brothers, Lord 
Henry Dudley, who was killed at the battle of St. 
Ouentin. The two who survived, Lord Ambrose 
and Lord Robert Dudley, though they had been 
pardoned for their share in the attempt to place 
Lady Jane Grey on the throne, and had obtained 
some employment under the Catholic sovereign and 
her husband, had not been regarded by them with 
much favour. Immediately after Elizabeth's acces- 
sion both brothers, and their sister too, were sum- 
moned to Court. 

All three had been the new queen's playmates in 
the lifetime of her father, and her intimate friends 
during her brother's reign ; Ambrose being about 
three years, and Robert about one year her senior, 

* " Historical Manuscripts Commission Reports," vol. viii., part i., 
p. 94. 



20 Sir Philip Sidney. L1554- 

and Mary her junior by a year or so. They were 
not now forgotten. The royal grace shown to Lady 
Sidney was to consist chiefly in requiring her to 
give frequent and often irksome attendance on her 
old companion at Whitehall, Hampton Court, and 
elsewhere ; but the brothers were to have more sub- 
stantial rewards. Lord Robert Dudley, having spe- 
cial talent for self-advancement, used his influence 
over Elizabeth so well that on the nth of January, 
1559, he was appointed Master of the Horse, and on 
the 23d of April following was made a Knight of 
the Garter, and sworn into the Privy Council. Other 
honours ensued in quick succession, until the highest 
was reached by his elevation to the peerage as Baron 
Denbigh on the 28th of September, 1564, and as 
Earl of Leicester on the next day. Throughout 
the five years before and the five years after this 
date^ nearly every year bringing a fresh grant of 
land and rich pension, he was openly talked of as 
the Queen's lover, only prevented by State reasons 
or her own whims from becoming her husband. 
Lord Ambrose Dudley was not so highly favoured ; 
but he was made Master of the Ordnance in 1560, 
created Baron de LTsle, and allowed to assume his 
brother John's lapsed title as Earl of Warwick in 
1 561, and invested with the Order of the Garter in 

1563. 

Sir Henry Sidney, being busy in Ireland, can have 
seen nothing with his own eyes of the boisterous 
gaiety with which all Englishmen — except those 
who were Catholics by conviction, and many even 
of them — welcomed the change from Queen Mary's 




ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER. 

FROM AN ENGRAVING IN " HEROOLOGIA ANGLICA. " 



1568] Under Queen Elizabeth. 21 

sombre and oppressive rule to the brilliance and the 
promise of beneficence that dazzled and intoxicated 
them when Queen Elizabeth, just twenty-five years 
old, rode up from Hatfield to be proclaimed and 
crowned in London. But Lady Sidney was within 
reach, able — and indeed compelled — not merely to 
look on at the spectacle and to join in the thanks- 
givings and rejoicings, but also to peer below the 
surface and discern some of the vanities and jeal- 
ousies that were incident to even the coronation 
shows, and that gained strength in the following years. 
Her husband, also, was soon brought into contact 
with them.* His first term of service in Ireland ended 
early in 1560, when, returning to England, he was ap- 
pointed Lord President of Wales, with jurisdiction 
over the adjacent English counties which were at 
that time, for purposes of government, joined to the 
old principality. Though he was frequently called 
off for employment elsewhere, especially in Ireland, 
he held the office of Lord President continuously for 
the next quarter of a century, with Ludlow Castle, 
in Shropshire, as his official residence ; and from 
Ludlow he often went to Court. 

Of the uses to which this trusty servant of the 
State was put we have illustrations in 1562. In the 

* Strange stories are told by Mr. Froude (" History of England," 
vol. vi., pp. 264-271, 452, 481, 487), on the authority of De Quadra, 
the Spanish ambassador in London, concerning the share taken by 
Sir Henry and Lady Sidney in Leicester's alleged plotting to acquire 
fresh and discreditable influence over Elizabeth ; but as I am not 
able to consult the Simancas MSS. from which Mr. Froude 
quotes, it is safer to leave the curious reader to draw his own conclu- 
sions from the historian's statements. 



22 Sir Philip Sidney, [1554- 

April of that year he was sent on a special mission 
to France, with instructions to attempt a reconcilia- 
tion between Catherine de'Medici, regent during the 
minority of her son, Charles the Ninth, and Henry 
of Navarre — that is, between the Catholic and 
Protestant factions, whose quarrel already threat- 
ened to result in civil war. He was in Paris in 
May, when he did all that could be done in the way 
of pleasant speaking and the extracting of empty 
promises. Returning to London in June, he was next 
month despatched on another errand. This time 
the journey was to Edinburgh, and his business to 
visit Mary Queen of Scots, and arrange for post- 
ponement of a contemplated interview between 
her and Queen Elizabeth at York. Then other 
duties were assigned to him in assisting his brother- 
in-law, the newly made Earl of Warwick, who, as 
Master of the Ordnance, had to prepare for the 
little war in which, to befriend the Huguenots, 
Elizabeth now embarked against France. In Octo- 
ber and November, 1562, he was at Dover, Rye, 
Newhaven, and other places, looking after the ship- 
ment of troops and the fortifications. Newhaven 
appears to have been his headquarters until May, 
1 5^3, when he was at Portsmouth, still busy about 
the defences of the English coast and arrangements 
for attacking the French.* 

There is more interest for us in the fact of Sir 
Henry Sidney being thus variously employed, since 



* State Papers, Foreign, Elizabeth ; letters dated 28 April, 8 and 
28 May, 8 and 14 June, 15 and 25 July, 30 October, and 2 Novem- 
ber, 1562, and 28 Mav, 1563. 



1568] Lady Sidney s Small-pox \ 23 

it shows what value was placed on his services, than 
in the details of his occupations. Yet one detail 
in the family history, which must be referred to this 
time, is both important and pathetic. " When I went 
to Newhaven," he wrote twenty years later concern- 
ing his wife, " I left her a full fair lady, in my eyes 
at least the fairest, and when I returned I found her 
as foul a lady as the small-pox could make her, 
which she did take by continued attendance of her 
Majesty's most precious person, sick of the same 
disease ; the- scars of which, to her resolute discom- 
fort ever since, remain in her face, so as she liketh 
solitariness, sicut nicticorax in domicilio suo." 

Others beside Sir Henry thought Lady Sidney "a 
full fair lady," one of the fairest in her day, before 
she fell a victim to the small-pox, caught in zealous 
attendance on Queen Elizabeth ; and no physical 
affliction could spoil her mental and moral beauty. 
But the disaster had a cruel effect on her. Hence- 
forth, as we are told by the dear friend and first 
biographer of her son Philip, " she chose rather to 
hide herself from the curious eyes of a delicate time 
than come upon the stage of the world with any 
manner of disparagement ; this mischance of sick- 
ness having cast such a veil over her excellent beauty 
as the modesty of that sex doth many times upon 
their native and heroical spirits." * 

Lady Sidney retired to Penshurst, where her hus- 
band, it may be taken for granted, visited her as 
often as he could turn aside from his duties as Lord 



* Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, "The Life of the Renowned Sir 
Philip Sidney." 



24 Sir Philip Sidney, [1554- 

President of Wales and in other capacities. At 
Penshurst their second son, Robert, was born in the 
following year, and their eldest boy was being pre- 
pared for training and occupation elsewhere. 

For positive information about Philip, after the 
date and place of his birth, we have to wait till his 
tenth year ; and then we have a strange glimpse of 
him. From a day-old infant he has developed into 
a clerk in holy orders, requiring only a few formali- 
ties to qualify him as rector of a parish church in 
Wales. 

On the 6th of May, 1564, Philip Sidney, clerk, 
appointed one Master Gruff John, clerk, bachelor of 
laws, and rector of Skyneog, to appear as his proctor 
before Thomas, Bishop of St. Asaph, and, after ex- 
cusing his absence and alleging the cause thereof, to 
claim, on his behalf, admission to and institution in 
and corporeal possession of the church and rectory of 
Whitford, in the county of Flint, and, also on his 
behalf, to renounce the jurisdiction of the Pope and 
take the oath of allegiance to Queen Elizabeth. On 
the 7th of May the Bishop of St. Asaph appended 
his signature and seal to a document preferring Philip 
Sidney, scholar, to the church aforesaid. On the 
8th of May Philip Sidney, represented by his proc- 
tor, was duly admitted by the bishop's vicar to the 
church and rectory, the same being declared vacant 
through the just deprivation of Hugh Whitford, the 
former rector ; and on the 4th of June the transfer 
was completed by the signing of an indenture be- 
tween the Bishop of St. Asaph and Philip Sidney, 
son of Sir Henry Sidney, knight, whereby the said 




LADY MARY SIDNEY. 

FROM AN ENGRAVING BY E. HARDING. 



1568] As Clerk in Holy Orders. 25 

Philip Sidney was collated to the said church of 
Whitford.* 

This comical arrangement can be easily explained. 
Master Hugh Whitford, hitherto rector of Whitford, 
was evidently one of the thousands of Papists, who, 
loyal to Queen Mary, refused to adopt the Protestant 
ritual prescribed by Queen Elizabeth. More than 
five years had elapsed before his heresy was dis- 
covered, or before it was convenient to displace him. 
At length, Sir Henry Sidney — being Lord President 
of Wales, and anxious to make some provision for 
his son — followed a plan which looks strange and 
scarcely honest in the nineteenth century, but which 
was common enough in the sixteenth, and took 
advantage of Master Whitford's contumacy. From 
the time when Philip Sidney was nine and a half 
years old, he was lay-rector of Whitford. It appears 
from a proposed marriage settlement drawn up for 
him in 1569, when he was not yet fifteen, that his 
title to the living had then still sixty years to run, 
and, after all dues and all charges for performance of 
the work by deputy were deducted, yielded him an 
income of £60 a year.f 

Philip having been made a clerk in holy orders, it 
was time for him to be sent to school. Under date 
of the 16th of November, 1564, his name is entered, 
along with that of Fulke Greville, in the register of 
Shrewsbury school. Shrewsbury, which Sir Henry 
often visited on public business, was within easy 



♦These four documents are among the MS. treasures at Penshurst. 
f This document, dated 6 August, 1569, is among the Hatfield 
MSS., No. 1316. 



26 Sir Philip Sidney. [1554- 

reach of Ludlow Castle, his place of residence when 
he was able to attend to his presidential duties. " At 
this day," Camden said of Shrewsbury in 1586, " itj 
is a fine city, well inhabited, and of good commerce, 
and by the industry of the citizens, and their cloth 
manufacture and their trade with the Welsh, is very 
rich ; for hither the Welsh commodities are brought 
as to the common mart of both nations. Its inhabi- 
tants are partly English, partly Welsh. They use 
both languages. And this, among other things, must 
be mentioned to their highest praise — that they have 
erected the largest school in all England for the 
education of youth ; for which Thomas Ashton, the 
first schoolmaster, a person of great worth and in- 
tegrity, provided, by his own industry, a competent 
salary." As they had been contemporaries at 
Oxford, it is probable that Sir Henry Sidney and 
Master Ashton were old friends, and knew one 
another's merit. At any rate, the Lord President of 
Wales doubtless had excellent reasons for placing 
his son under the charge of the Shrewsbury dominie. 
During some four years, between the ages of ten 
and fourteen, Philip was with Master Ashton. He 
evidently profited by the care bestowed upon him. 
In those days schooling began and ended sooner 
than it does now ; but Philip appears to have been 
more precocious than his comrades. " Of his youth," 
wrote Fulke Greville, who was a kinsman of Philip, 
and was born at Beauchamp Court, near Warwick, 
in the same year, " I will report no other wonder 
than this, that, though I lived with him and knew 
him from a child, yet I never knew him other than 



1568] At Shrewsbury School. 27 

a man ; with such staidness of mind, lovely and 
familiar gravity, as carried grace and reverence above 
greater years ; his talk ever of knowledge, and his 
very play tending to enrich his mind, so that even his 
teachers found something in him to observe and 
learn above that which they had usually read or 
taught. Which eminence by nature and industry 
made his worthy father style Sir Philip in my hear- 
ing, though I unseen, lumen familice suce." 

Light of the household, indeed ! There was good 
warrant for Sir Henry Sidney's pride in the boy. 
The view that Fulke Greville gives us of his school- 
mate is confirmed and amplified by a letter which 
Sir Henry wrote when Philip can have been scarcely 
more than eleven years old, and which throws much 
welcome light on the father's character as well as on 
the son's — with some also on that best mood of 
thought in Queen Elizabeth's day which had Roger 
Ascham for one of its leaders. Being, as he says, 
the first letter that the busy statesman had had 
leisure or occasion to send to the child he dearly 
loved, he tried to compress into a few sentences a 
whole code of manly duty. 

Son Philip, 

I have received two letters from you, one written in 
Latin, the other in French ; which I take in good part, 
and will you to exercise that practice of learning often ; 
for that will stand you in most stead in that profession 
of life that you are born to live in. And now, since this 
is my first letter that ever I did write to you, I will not 
that it be all empty of some advices which my natural 



28 Sir Philip Sidney. 11554- 

care of you provoketh me to wish you to follow, as docu- 
ments to you in this your tender age. 

Let your first action be the lifting up of your mind to 
Almighty God, by hearty prayer ; and feelingly digest 
the words you speak in prayer, with continual medita- 
tion and thinking of Him to Whom you pray, and of the 
matter for which you pray. And use this as an ordinary 
act, and at an ordinary hour ; whereby the time itself 
shall put you in remembrance to do that you are accus- 
tomed to do in that time. 

Apply your study to such hours as your discreet mas- 
ter doth assign you, earnestly ; and the time I know he 
will so limit as shall be both sufficient for your learning 
and safe for your health. And mark the sense and the 
matter of that you do read, as well as the words ; so 
shall you both enrich your tongue with words and your 
wit with matter, and judgment will grow as years grow 
in you. 

Be humble and obedient to your masters, for, unless 
you frame yourself to obey others — yea, and feel in 
yourself what obedience is, you shall never be able to 
teach others how to obey you. 

Be courteous of gesture and affable to all men, with 
diversity of reverence, according to the dignity of the 
person. There is nothing that winneth so much with so 
little cost. 

Use moderate diet, so as, after your meal, you may 
find your wit fresher and not duller, and your body more 
lively and not more heavy. Seldom drink wine ; and 
yet sometimes do, lest, being enforced to drink upon the 
sudden, you should find yourself enflamed. Use exer- 
cise of body, yet such as is without peril of your bones 
or joints : it will increase your force and enlarge your 
breath. Delight to be cleanly, as well in all parts of 



1568] A Letter of Good Counsel. 29 

your body as in your garments : it shall make you grate- 
ful in each company — and otherwise loathsome. 

Give yourself to be merry ; for you degenerate from 
your father if you find not yourself most able in wit and 
body to do anything when you are most merry. But let 
your mirth be ever void of all scurrility and biting words 
to any man ; for a wound given by a word is oftentimes 
harder to be cured than that which is given by the 
sword 

Be you rather a hearer and bearer away of other men's 
talk than a beginner and procurer of speech : otherwise 
you shall be accounted to delight to hear yourself speak. 
If you hear a wise sentence or an apt phrase, commit it 
to your memory with respect of the circumstance when 
you shall speak it. Let never oath be heard to come 
out of your mouth, nor word of ribaldry : so shall cus- 
tom make to yourself a law against it in yourself. Be 
modest in each assembly, and rather be rebuked of light 
fellows for maiden-like shamefastness than of your sad 
friends for pert boldness. Think upon every word that 
you will speak before you utter it, and remember how 
nature hath ramparted up, as it were, the tongue with 
teeth, lips — yea, and hair without the lips, and all betok- 
ening reins and bridles for the loose use of that member. 

Above all things, tell no untruth ; no, not in trifles. 
The custom of it is naughty. And let it not satisfy you 
that for a time the hearers take it for a truth ; for after 
it will be known as it is, to your shame. For there can- 
not be a greater reproach to a gentleman than to be 
accounted a liar. 

Study and endeavour yourself to be virtuously occu- 
pied. So shall you make such a habit of well-doing in 
you as you shall not know how to do evil, though you 
would. Remember, my son, the noble blood you are 



3<d Sir Philip Sidney. [1554- 

descended of by your mother's side ; and think that only 
by virtuous life and good action you may be an orna- 
ment to that illustrious family. Otherwise, through 
vice and sloth, you may be counted labes generis — one of 
the greatest curses that can happen to man. 

Well, my little Philip, this is enough for me, and too 
much, I fear, for you. But if I shall find that this light 
meal of digestion nourish in anything the weak stomach 
of your capacity, I will, as I find the same grow stronger, 
feed it with other food. 

Commend me most heartily unto Master Justice Cor- 
bet, old Master Onslow, and my cousin, his son. Fare- 
well ! Your mother and I send you our blessings, and 
Almighty God grant you His, nourish you with His fear, 
govern you with His grace, and make you a good servant 
to your prince and country ! 

Your loving father, so long as you live in the fear of 
God, 

H. Sidney. 

Thus worthily wrote the Lord President. Then 
followed "a postscript by my Lady Sidney, in the 
skirts of my Lord President's letter." 

Your noble careful father hath taken pains with his 
own hand to give you, in this his letter, so wise, so 
learned and most requisite precepts for you to follow 
with a diligent and humble, thankful mind, as I will not 
withdraw your eyes from beholding and reverent honour- 
ing the same — no, not so long as to read any letter from 
me. And therefore, at this time, I will write unto you no 
other letter than this ; whereby I first bless you, with my 
desire to God to plant in you His grace, and, secondarily, 
warn you to have always before the eyes of your mind 



1568] Sir Henry in Ireland, 31 

these excellent counsels of my lord, your dear father, 
and that you fail not continually, once in four or five 
days, to read them over. 

And for a final leave-taking for this time, see that you 
show yourself as a loving, obedient scholar to your good 
master, to govern you yet many years, and that my lord 
and I may hear that you profit so in your learning as 
thereby you may increase our loving care of you, and 
deserve at his hands the continuance of his great joy, to 
have him often witness with his own hands the hope he 
hath in your well-doing. 

Farewell, my little Philip, and once again the Lord 
bless you ! 

Your loving mother, 

Mary Sidney. 

Neither letter nor postscript was dated. Both 
were probably written either shortly before or soon 
after Sir Henry Sidney's return to Ireland, whither 
he was sent at the close of 1565, and whither we 
must follow him to see something of his occupations 
while the little Philip was at school in Shrewsbury. 
Of Philip himself we have no further knowledge till 
his school days were over. 

Sir Henry was thrice Lord Deputy of Ireland, and 
the work there done by him, as the ablest and wor- 
thiest of Queen Elizabeth's viceroys, occupies an im- 
portant place in the history of this reign. But here 
only so much may be said about it as is necessary 
to explain some passages in his son's life. 

He and Lady Sidney started for Dublin at the end 
of November, 1565, but more than six weeks were 
occupied in the journey. They were detained by 



32 Sir Philip Sidney. Li 554- 

contrary winds, and shipwrecked in crossing St. 
George's Channel. When the Lord Deputy was at 
length able to enter on his duties in January, 1566, 
other storms and troubles oppressed him. He had 
been selected for further service in Ireland, after 
nearly six years' interval, because he was considered 
the fittest man to repair some of the mischief caused 
by his brother-in-law, the Earl of Sussex. Sussex 
had not been able to control the lawless chiefs or to 
establish order among the persecuted people com- 
mitted to his management as Lord Deputy of 
Ireland. He had blundered especially, and had 
thereby provoked a formidable rebellion, in his 
interference with Shane O'Neill, styled the Captain 
of Tyrone, and the most turbulent of the local 
despots at that time. Sir Henry Sidney's first busi- 
ness was to stamp out this rebellion, and this he only 
succeeded in doing after two tedious campaigns. 
Not till May, 1567, was O'Neill's head brought to 
him " pickled in a pipkin," as he reported, and the 
northern part of Ireland reduced to a semblance of 
subjection which lasted for a few years. 

Sir Henry considered that he might have perform- 
ed this task in much less time and with much more 
ease and credit had he been duly supported by 
Queen Elizabeth and her ministers in London. He 
had to make repeated and reproachful appeals for 
the supplies of money promised and absolutely 
required for payment of his troops. He was also 
sorely hampered by the conflicting orders sent from 
Court, and by the unreasonable demands made upon 
him at the instigation chiefly of Thomas Butler, the 




SIR HENRY SIDNEY. 

FROM AN ENGRAVING BY E. HARDING. 



1568] The Lord Deputy's Difficulties. $$ 

tenth Earl of Ormond. This Earl of Ormond, one 
of the few Irish nobles resident in England, deemed 
that his courtly bearing in London authorised him to 
do anything he pleased with his own wild dominions 
in the neighbourhood of Waterford, and he used 
all his influence with Elizabeth towards gaining his 
wishes and procuring harsh treatment of his rival, 
the Earl of Desmond. Her suitor being a handsome 
man and a zealous flatterer, the Queen gave a ready 
ear to his appeals and sent preposterous instructions 
to the Lord Deputy. Sir Henry's fighting against 
O'Neill in the north had to be interrupted for several 
months in order that he might look after Ormond's 
interests in the comparatively peaceful south ; and, 
after O'Neill had been disposed of, he found it 
impossible to reconcile the claims of the two earls 
or to reduce their partisans to order. " Albeit they 
would inveigh against each other," he reported, "yet 
if any sentence passed for the advancement of the 
Queen's prerogative, or suppression of either of their 
tyrannies, straightway it was cried out of and com- 
plained to the Queen, specially by the Earl of 
Ormond, as injustice and oppression." 

That state of things, lasting at intervals through a 
dozen years, must be borne in mind as explaining 
much in Sir Henry Sidney's whole career as a servant 
of the state and largely influencing that of his son 
Philipi The Lord Deputy's firm and honourable 
dealing, his self-sacrificing and far-seeing statesman- 
ship, paused much misfortune to both father and son 
and to the rest of the family. There was evidence of 
this in the winter of 1 566-1 567. " I received," 
3 



34 Sir Philip Sidney, [1554- 

wrote Sir Henry, " many a bitter letter, which indeed 
tried me, and so perplexed my most dear wife as she 
fell most grievously sick upon the same, and in that 
sickness remained once in a trance above fifty-two 
hours ; upon whose recovery I sent her into England, 
where she lived till my coming over." 

The Lord Deputy followed his wife in eight or 
nine months. In October, 1567, as he said, " I pro- 
cured my revocation, being tired in body with my 
long and most painful travail, but more wearied in 
mind with the sharp and bitter letters which-I almost 
weekly received out of England by the procurement 
of the Earl of Ormond." 

Notwithstanding his weariness and chagrin, Sir 
Henry made a brave show when he reached Hamp- 
ton Court one November morning, with about two 
hundred noblemen and gentlemen in his train. 
Chief among these was the Earl of Desmond, who 
came to state his case against the Earl of Ormond, 
in the hope of winning some favour from the Queen ; 
and with him were several other Irish leaders and 
their attendants, anxious, as Sir Henry declared, to 
behold with their own eyes u the high majesty of our 
sacred sovereign." That "high majesty," according 
to contemporary gossip, was looking out of a window 
when the quaintly attired company arrived. Asking 
what it meant, she was told that it was Sir Henry 
Sidney's party. " Ay, that it well may be," she ex- 
claimed, " for he hath two of the best offices in 
England." 

The visitors had crossed over at their own ex- 
pense, and seeing that Sir Henry had had to 



1568] Sir Henry Sidney and the Queen. 35 

provide a substitute during his absence from Wales, 
and found that he had been out of pocket more 
than ,£3,000 by his two years' Irish service, he was 
certainly not a pecuniary gainer by his double office- 
holding as Lord Deputy and Lord President. Nor 
was he recompensed even with thanks. For having 
rescued Ireland from the despotism of the Captain 
of Tyrone his praises were sung, it is true, in " The 
Mirror for Magistrates " and other popular verse ; but, 
as he complained, " when I came to Court it was 
told me it was no war I had made, nor worthy to be 
called a war, for that Shane O'Neill was but a beg- 
gar, an outlaw, and one of no force." And his 
other zealous work was condemned as well as 
slighted. 

But his services could not be dispensed with for 
long, or limited to the easy duties of Lord President 
of Wales. Going back to Ludlow Castle in Decem- 
ber, he was there dangerously ill, and in the follow- 
ing February he had to be operated upon for a 
disease attributed to the hard work and unhealthy 
living forced upon him in Ireland. The surgeon's 
report was that he could only hope to keep himself 
alive by careful dieting and avoidance of violent 
exercise. He was summoned to Court in May, how- 
ever, and though he was then excused from immedi- 
ate reinstatement as Lord Deputy, or kept back 
through the influence of the Ormond faction, it 
was in August deemed necessary that he should 
start at once, making it his first and chief business 
to put down disturbances that had broken out in 
Ulster since his departure. 



36 



Sir Philip Sidney. 



[1568 



His second viceroyship lasted until March, 1571. 
Through more than two and a half years he worked 
as zealously as before in Queen Elizabeth's service, 
and his labours met with the same reward. More 
than ever, as he averred, the Earl of Ormond was 
his " professed foe " and the chief cause of the 
harsh treatment he received. " According to his 
piquant speeches I had sour letters, which in truth 
to me were tortious ; for when my designs were 
reasonable, my proceedings painful, and my success 
and the event both profitable and honourable, what 
should I say but Miserere nobis, Domine ! " 






CHAPTER III. 

UNDERGRADUATE YEARS. 
I 568-I 572. 

ITHIN a few months after Sir 
Henry Sidney's return from 
Ireland in November, 1567, 
and probably quite early in 
1568, he removed his son 
Philip, who was then only in 
his fourteenth year, from 
Master Thomas Ashton's school at Shrewsbury, and 
placed him in Christ Church College, Oxford, where 
his education was continued during the next three 
years or more. The change was made at any rate 
before the 2d of August, 1568, when Sir Henry 
paid a visit to the university, partly to receive a 
complimentary degree as Master of Arts, and partly 
to see how Philip was advancing in his studies and 
to take him away for a short holiday at Ludlow. 

About Philip's studies we are not told much ; but 
as, so far as actual schooling went, they ended 
before he was seventeen, and as afterwards he was 

37 



38 Sir Philip Sidney. [1568- 

considered a man of rare learning, he must have 
made good use of all the opportunities in his way ; 
and we may credit the statement of an old writer, 
that in his case " an excellent stock met with the 
choicest grafts, nor could his tutors pour in so 
fast as he was ready to receive." "All sorts of learn- 
ing," says this informant, " were so indifferently 
favoured by him that each of them might allege 
arguments that he most reflected in his dearness 
upon them, insomuch that those that were to make 
a meal of learning, and to have it for their fixed habi- 
tation, envied him who only took it in transitu, and, 
as it were, in complement in his passage to higher 
designs." 

At Christ Church he had the best teaching that 
Oxford could then give, and his first tutor there, 
Dr. Thomas Thornton, appears to have been a man 
of exceptional worth. Of Thornton it was said in 
his day that he was " the common refuge of young 
poor scholars of great hopes and parts " ; and so 
proud was he of his share in the training of Philip 
Sidney, that when he died he left directions that 
the fact should be recorded on his tombstone. 
Another of Philip's tutors was one Master Robert 
Dorset, who was afterwards tutor to Philip's brother 
Robert, and was in due time made Dean of 
Chester, doubtless through Sir Henry Sidney's 
influence. 

Of Philip's college companions at least three rose 
to eminence. One was Richard Carew, of Antony, 
the first English translator of Tasso. Another was 
Richard Hakluyt, famous as a voyager and more 



From a letter to Sir William Cecil, written in Latin on March 12, 1569 (a;t. 14). 



(£&Jf<ffkjfy 



From a letter to Sir Francis Walsingham, written on December 17, 1581 (xt. 27). 



f^£^ CK/ ^~ L^^^wc^-^^-^ 



From 3 letter to Lord Burghley, written on May 15,1585 (set. 30). 

SIGNATURES OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 

FROM THE ORIGINALS IN THE RECORD OFFICE. 



1572] As Student at Oxford. 39 

famous as the editor and chronicler of other men's 
voyages. A third was William Camden, the fore- 
most of England's historians. Both Hakluyt and 
Camden maintained friendship with Philip in later 
years, and looked up to him as a patron. But his 
most intimate Oxford friend was Fulke Greville, 
who had been at school with him at Shrewsbury, 
and was a student, not of Christ Church, but of 
Broadgates, now Pembroke, before passing to Trinity 
College, Cambridge. 

Philip's uncle, the Earl of Leicester, was Chancellor 
of Oxford University, and during his visits there he 
appears to have taken some care of the youth, 
one instance of which appears in a letter addressed 
by him to Archbishop Parker, soliciting " a license to 
eat flesh during Lent, for my boy Philip Sidney, 
who is somewhat subject to sickness." Philip, how- 
ever, was more steadily looked after by Sir Henry's 
old friend, Sir William Cecil, at this time Chancellor 
of Cambridge University. Leicester and Cecil, never 
good friends, were now as much at feud as their fear 
of offending Queen Elizabeth permitted. In Cecil's 
eyes Leicester was always the Queen's evil genius, 
leading her into frivolities and extravagances, and 
directing to his own use too much of the income of 
the State which the prudent minister wished to see 
employed in the country's service. In Leicester's 
eyes Cecil was a churl, treacherous and grasping in 
furtherance of his own interests, and puritanical in 
his views on public affairs. But Sir Henry Sidney, 
perhaps with the help of some Jesuitry, was generally 
on good terms both with his unscrupulous, loose- 



40 Sir Philip Sidney. [1568- 

living brother-in-law, who was yet in his poor way 
chivalrous and even generous, and with the discreet 
Secretary of State, presently to become Baron Burgh- 
ley and Lord High Treasurer, who never neglected 
his personal advantage while honestly and skilfully 
holding the Queen's purse. In his own way Cecil 
was a faithful friend to the Lord Deputy and to his 
family. Lady Sidney, too, had been intimate from 
girlhood with Lady Cecil — the Mildred Cooke who 
had been one of Roger Ascham's favourite and most 
talented pupils, along with Princess Elizabeth and 
Lady Jane Grey. The boy Philip was Sir William 
Cecil's pet. 

On the 8th of August, 1568, six days after Sir 
Henry, as we have seen, had gone to visit his son at 
Oxford and to take him back to Ludlow, we find 
him reporting to Leicester that he had turned aside 
on the road to pay a visit to Kenilworth, which 
Queen Elizabeth had given to her favourite just five 
years before. " I could not come so near your fair 
and ancient castle as my way led me to do," he 
wrote, " and leave it unseen, but thither I went " ; 
and there, he added, he was fitly entertained by the 
people in charge, who " knew me to be your lord- 
ship's well-beloved brother." " I was never more in 
love with an old house, nor never new work could be 
better bestowed than that which you have done." 
Philip's name is not mentioned in this letter ; but 
we may be sure that he shared his father's admira- 
tion for the famous building he now visited for the 
first time. 

At the end of a letter written to Cecil on the same 



1572] "The Darling Philip:' 41 

8th of August, Sir Henry said, " Most heartily I 
recommend unto you my wife, myself and my boy, 
and I beseech you recommend me humbly to my 
lady your wife " ; and that letter was crossed by one 
which Cecil addressed to Sir Henry from Court on 
the 9th of August, and in which he sent his compli- 
ments to Lady Sidney and " the darling Philip." 
" The darling Philip " remained with his father till 
the end of the month, when the Lord Deputy started 
for Ireland. Another letter from Cecil, written in a 
playful mood, on the 3d of September, followed Sir 
Henry across the Channel. " There is one thing 
that is heavy for you to bear," he said, "considering 
you have therein offended many. You carried away 
your son and my scholar from Oxford, not only from 
his books, but from the commodity to have been 
seen of my lords, his uncles, and to have been 
approved by me, and to have pleasured both me 
and my wife. I think, indeed, either you forgot the 
Queen's progress to be so near Oxford, or else you 
have some matter of necessity to allege for your 
taking him from Oxford, and for your detaining him 
so long in wild Wales." 

As he was not to see his father again for more 
than two years, there was good reason for Philip's 
being detained three weeks or so in Wales, or rather 
in Shropshire, and there was doubtless more whole- 
some pleasure for him in this holiday than he would 
have found in the bustle of Queen Elizabeth's " pro- 
gress " in August, 1 571, which included visits to Lord 
Grey of Wilton, a friend of the Sidneys, at Whad- 
don, and to Earl Pomfret, another friend of the 



42 Sir Philip Sidney. [1568- 

Sidneys, at Easton Neston, in Northamptonshire. 
This letter reminds us, however, that Philip was 
already, in his fourteenth year, not merely an Ox- 
ford scholar, but in training for the courtly life in 
which he was soon to shine. 

Other correspondence between Sir William and 
Sir Henry, and Sir Henry's son also, throws wel- 
come light on Philip and his surroundings, and intro- 
duces us to what might have been a very memorable 
incident in his career. 

The Lord Deputy had not long been absent from 
England, or his wife long settled at home, before 
the Secretary of State found time to run down to 
Penshurst.* " I most heartily thank you," Sir Henry 
wrote on the 29th of November, " for your courteous 
visitation of my wife ; and I pray you sometimes 
hearken of our boy, and be working how to get home 
the father." And the letter ends with " most hearty 
commendations to yourself, my lady, and my sweet 
jewel, your daughter." The " sweet jewel," was 
Anne, the elder of the two surviving daughters of 
Sir William and Lady Cecil, three others having 
died in infancy. She was about two years younger 
than Philip Sidney, having been a baby at the close 
of 1557, when Sir Philip Hoby wrote to invite Lady 
Cecil to come and spend Christmas with his wife, 
and to bring " little Tannykin " with her. " Little 

* On the 5th of November Cecil, in a letter to Sir Henry Sidney, 
informed him, evidently with a touch of scorn, that "my lord of 
Leicester" was "at dice and merry" in his (Cecil's) apartments in 
the Savoy, " where he hath lodged these two nights." On the 15th 
of December Cecil tells Sidney that he "chides" Leicester for not 
helping as he should in Sidney's affairs. — State Papers, Irish. 



1572] «« Worthy to be Loved." 43 

Tannykin " had now grown to be a sprightly maiden, 
praised for her sweet looks, as well as for her ready 
wit and graceful ways; and she had much to do with 
the intimacy which at this time was closer than usual 
between Philip's parents and hers. 

Ten days before the date of the letter just quoted, 
Sir William had written to tell Sir Henry that he 
expected Lady Sidney to arrive next Monday on a 
visit to his wife at Hampton Court. There Lady 
Sidney probably kept Christmas, and, if so, she met 
Philip, who spent his holidays with the Cecils and 
joined the crowd of Elizabeth's courtiers. " Your 
Philip is here," wrote Sir William to Sir Henry on 
the 6th of January, 1569, at the end of a long letter, 
in which he complained of the " tub full " of trouble- 
some business in which he was immersed — "your 
Philip, in whom I take more comfort than I do 
openly utter for avoiding of wrong interpretation. 
He is worthy to be loved, and so I do love him, as 
he were mine own." 

Those words, or some other communication to 
Sir Henry, which has not been preserved, prompted 
him to send from Ireland a proposal, also not on 
record, of which the purport is indicated in Sir Wil- 
liam's cautious reply. " I thank you," Cecil wrote 
on the 2d of February, " for your free offer made to 
me by your letters concerning your son, whom truly 
I do so like for his own conditions and singular tow- 
ardness in all good things as I think you a happy 
father for so joyful a son. And as for the interest 
that it pleaseth you to offer me in him, I must con- 
fess, if the child alone were valued without the 



44 Sir Philip Sidney. [1568- 

natural good that dependeth of you his father, I 
could not but think him worthy the love I bear him, 
which certainly is more than I do express outwardly, 
for avoiding of sinister interpretation. For, as for the 
account to have him my son, I see so many inciden- 
ces as it sufficeth me to love the child for himself, 
without regard therein of my daughter, whom surely 
I love so well as, so it be within my degree or not 
much above it, I shall think none too good for her. 
Thus you see a father's fondness, which to a father 
I dare discover, and so for this time it sufficeth." 

Through Sir William Cecil's strained and diplo- 
matic phrases his meaning may be clearly seen. He 
would like Philip for a son-in-law, and would always 
love him as though he were his own son ; but his 
daughter's husband must be rich enough to keep 
her in a dignified position, and he was evidently not 
satisfied as to Philip's prospects, nor willing himself 
to make any large provision for the young couple. 
Thereupon doubtless followed more letters than we 
now know of. The next extant is one from Sir 
Henry Sidney, written on the 7th of April, 1569, 
deploring that he was, for his station, a poor man, 
and not able to do as much as he would like. At 
the same time, he said, " let me know what you 
would have me do, and you shall find me ready. 
For, before God, in these matters, I am utterly 
ignorant, as one that never made a marriage in his 
life. But I mean truly, loving your daughter as 
one of my own, regarding her virtue above any dot, 
and your friendship more than all the money you 
will give. And for my boy, I confess if I might 



1572] A Marriage Project. 45 

have every week a boy, I should never love none 
like him, and accordingly have dealt with him, for I 
do not know above ^iooa year I have not assured 
to him."* 

Sir William appears to have still thought that 
Sir Henry — perhaps with help from the Earl of 
Leicester — should provide a larger income for Philip 
than that letter gave promise of ; but he did not at 
this time reject the proposal. He continued to be 
on as intimate terms as heretofore with the Sidneys, 
and in June he was godfather to Sir Henry's 
youngest child, born while he was in Ireland. \ Ne- 
gotiations for the proposed marriage were continued, 
and they went so far that on the 6th of August 
settlements were actually drafted. In these Sir 
Henry Sidney, or rather the Earl of Leicester, on 
his behalf, undertook, out of lands in his possession, 
valued at ;£ 1,140 $s. ^d. a year, to secure to Philip 
and his heirs a reversion of ,£840 4^. 2d. a year, and 
to assign to him on the day of his marriage an 
income of ,£266 13s. ^d., to which were to be added 
other sums after the decease of Sir Henry and of 
Lady Sidney respectively ; besides which, it is noted, 



* Hatfield MSS., No. 1289. The authorities for the previous 
letters on this subject, and most of those which follow, are given in 
my " Memoir of Sir Philip Sidney." 

f State Papers, Irish : Sir Henry Sidney to Sir William Cecil, 
30 June, 1569. In this letter Sir Henry thanked Cecil for helping 
to " make a Christian" of his little son, adding that, before he left 
England he had given orders that, " if it were a boy it should have 
been a William, if a woman a CycilL" But Cecil seems to have 
thought he already had namesakes enough, and to have preferred to 
name the child Thomas instead of William. 



46 Sir Philip Sidney. [1568- 

Philip would have the £§0 a year derived from his 
Whitford rectory. On Sir William Cecil's part, it 
was stipulated that his daughter should receive ^500 
on her wedding day, £$00 more within half a year 
after ; also that she and Philip, if they chose, should 
have food and lodging in his house for two years, and 
that on his death he should leave Anne an annuity 
of £66 \-$s. 4<J. The agreement included other pro- 
visions, conditional on the deaths of various persons. 
No more was assured to the couple, however, than 
;£ 1,000 to start with, and about ,£330 a year until 
other sums gradually fell in.* This, even at the 
value of money in Queen Elizabeth's day, was not a 
large fortune ; but it was, of course, assumed that 
Philip, as soon as he grew to man's estate, would 
acquire other property by his own deserts or Queen 
Elizabeth's favour. 

It does not appear that Leicester, whom the Queen 
had loaded with gifts of lands and sinecures, offered 
to contribute anything to his nephew's maintenance, 
but he heartily approved the match, and, Sir Henry 
being in Ireland, he arranged the details with Sir 
William. " I have been pressed with such kind 
offers of my Lord Deputy's, and with the like of my 
lord of Leicester's," Cecil wrote in a matter-of-fact 
memorandum, " as I have accorded with him upon 
articles that if P.S. and A.C. hereafter shall like to 
marry, then shall H.S., the father of P.S., make 
assurances, etc., and then shall also W.C., the father 
of A.C, pay, etc. What may follow I know not, but 
as I wish P.S. full liberty, so surely shall A.C. have 

* Hatfield MSS., No. 1316. 



1572] The End of the Marriage Project. 47 

it, and in the meantime I will omit no point of 
friendship." The document was taken to Dublin by 
John Thomas, the Lord Deputy's treasurer, who on 
the 24th of October wrote to Sir William : " My Lord 
Deputy doth very well like every of the articles, and 
is ready to perform it in such sort as by yourself 
shall be thought meet. I moved him also touching 
the marriage-money, to know whether he would 
receive it himself or else bestow the same upon your 
two children, for so I promised your honour I would 
do. He is very well contented the money shall be 
employed to their commodity, and that he will 
receive no part of it himself." And two days later 
Sir Henry wrote to Lady Cecil, expressing his joy at 
the betrothal of their children, and praying her to 
make much of his dear daughter — that is, of Anne — 
to whom he sent his " loving and father's kiss." * 

Yet the scheme was abandoned. As late as the 
24th of February, 1 570, Sir Henry, in a letter to Sir 
William, spoke affectionately of Anne Cecil as " our 
daughter Anne." But the same letter shows that 
obstacles were already in the way of her becoming 
his daughter-in-law. " I am sorry," he there said, 
" that you find coldness anywhere in proceeding, 
when such good liking appeared in the beginning. 
For my part, I was never more ready to perfect that 
matter than presently I am. If I might have the 
greatest prince's daughter in Christendom for him, 
the match spoken of between us, on my part, should 
not be broken." Sir Henry seems to have vexed his 
friend by not returning the articles of settlement sent 

* Hatfield MSS., No. 1393. 



48 Sir Philip Sidney, [1568- 

to him for signature. He had " well allowed " them, 
he wrote in this letter; " but where they be, God 
knoweth : the paper I cannot find." " This, for 
troth, Sir," he added, " I was never more joyous of 
the match than I am ; but how and which way never 
confer with me while I am here, without special 
direction ; for I neither can care nor consider, while 
I here dwell, for wife, child or myself." The poor 
Lord Deputy was now in the thick of his troubles, 
shattered in health by overwork, and distracted by 
Queen Elizabeth's treatment of him, which he evi- 
dently thought might be different if Sir William 
Cecil took his part more zealously. As Philip was 
not yet sixteen and Anne only about thirteen, neither 
of them arrived at years in which it could be ex- 
pected that they would " like to marry," he doubtless 
considered that the signing of the marriage articles 
might wait awhile. The project fell through, how- 
ever, either because there had been delay in complet- 
ing the document, or because, even had that been 
done, obstacles arose that would have caused Cecil to 
cancel it. 

In the spring of 1 571 Sir Henry Sidney came back 
from Ireland, and all through that year as well as 
for some time longer he was out of favour at Court. 
Meanwhile Sir William Cecil was created Baron 
Burghley, and henceforth his position as the Queen's 
chief adviser on matters of business, a courtier too 
shrewd and too honest to be dispensed with, was 
firmer than ever. We need not blame him very 
much, especially- as the change could have caused no 
heart-breaking to the boy and girl betrothed in theif 



1572] Anne Cecil's Suitors. 49 

teens, for consenting to a better match for his daugh- 
ter, so far as show went, than the one about which 
Sir Henry Sidney thought there need be no hurry. 
There were several promising suitors for the hand 
of pretty little Anne Cecil. One, perhaps not very 
eager, was Edward, third Earl of Rutland; another 
was Edward, seventeenth Earl of Oxford, a rich 
ward of Lord Burghley and, like the other earl, con- 
siderably older than Philip Sidney, besides being now 
almost the prime favourite at Court. " There is no 
man of life and agility in every respect in Court but 
the Earl of Oxford," wrote one correspondent of the 
Earl of Rutland in June, 1571 ; and another reported 
in July that " the Earl of Oxford hath gotten him a 
wife, or at least a wife hath caught him — that is, 
Mistress Anne Cecil ; whereunto the Queen hath 
given her consent. The which hath caused great 
weeping, wailing and sorrowful cheer of those that 
hoped to have had that golden day. Thus you may 
see that, whilst some triumph with olive branches, 
others follow the chariot with willow-garlands." 
And in August Lord Burghley himself offered some 
apology to the Earl of Rutland in terms implying 
that, though satisfied with his son-in-law, he would 
have preferred the other suitor had he been ready 
and at hand. " Truly, my lord," he said, "after I 
was acquainted of a former intention of a marriage 
with Mr. Philip Sidney, whom I always loved and 
esteemed, I was fully determined to have of myself 
moved no marriage for my daughter until she 
should have been near sixteen years old, that with 
moving I might also conclude " — that is, that there 
4 



50 Sir Philip Sidney. [1568- 

might be no long interval between the betrothal 
and the wedding days. " And yet I thought it not 
inconvenient, in the mean time, being free, to 
hearken to any motion made by such others as I 
should have cause to like." And he added, after 
more worldly-wise talk, in words that can scarcely 
have been genuine, coming as they did from so keen 
an observer of character as he was : " Now that the 
matter is determined betwixt my lord of Oxford and 
me, I confess to your lordship I do honour him as 
much as I can any subject, and I love him so dearly 
from my heart as I do mine own son, and in any 
case that may touch him for his honour and weal, I 
shall think mine own interest therein. And surely, 
my lord, by dealing with him I find that which I 
often heard of your lordship, that there is much 
more in him of understanding than any stranger to 
him would think." * 

The friendship between the Sidneys and the 
Cecils was not weakened by the failure of the mar- 
riage arrangements between Philip and Anne, and 
there is nothing to show that the young people took 
the matter much to heart. It was clearly a match 
not of their own making, but planned by their pa- 
rents and guardians. Three letters sent by Philip 
to Sir William Cecil while the project was being 
discussed, which are extant, contain no mention of 
Anne, and merely give us a little pleasant insight into 
the relations between the young Oxford student and 

* Belvoir MSS., in the possession of the Duke of Rutland ; George 
Delves to the Earl of Rutland, 24 June, 15 71 ; Lord St. John to 
the same, 28 July, 1571 ; Lord Burghley to the same, 15 August, 1571. 



1572] Letters to Sir William Cecil. 51 

the sage statesman who took a fatherly interest in 
his education. In the first, written in Latin, on the 
12th of March, 1569, Philip says: "To speak truth- 
fully, and not without heavy grief, I must confess 
that I can in no way satisfy either your expectation 
or my desire " — as regards his progress in book 
work, and declares " with what grateful memory I 
recall your kindness towards me, about which I shall 
ever think as I do now." " The duties and respect 
which I owe to yo.u, and which I wish most heartily 
to fulfil," he rather stiffly adds, " will bind me 
closely to you all life long, and always I shall set 
before myself, ever more and more eagerly, to find 
my happiness in deserving well of you." In the 
next letter, written in English, on the 8th of July, 
Philip thanks Sir William for his favours to his 
father and himself, and says he would write more 
and oftener, but that he knows not whether the 
busy Secretary of State cares for long letters. And 
on the 27th of February, 1570, Philip asks that the 
canonry of Christ Church may be given, as it had 
previously been promised, to his sometime tutor, 
Dr. Thomas Thornton, he being entitled to that 
advancement " by his desert towards me and the 
worthiness of his life and learning." 

But though no hearts were broken by the aban- 
donment of the proposed match between Philip and 
Anne Cecil, it seems a pity that they were not 
allowed to be married when they were old enough. 
Philip might have gained much by union with this 
lovable woman, and might have received from her 
wifely encouragement in his efforts to live an 



52 Sir Philip Sidney, [1568- 

altogether heroic life. And it certainly would have 
been far better for Anne had she been mated to a 
husband worthy of her, willing and able to protect 
her amid the rough conditions of attendance on 
Queen Elizabeth. The Earl of Oxford was well- 
nigh the gayest and well-nigh the most brutal of 
Elizabeth's courtiers. Treason in politics often 
estranged him from his sovereign, and treason in 
morals often estranged him from his wife ; but his 
fine outside and the fact that he was not, as we have 
seen that his father-in-law discovered, quite such a 
fool as he looked, obtained for him, in either case, 
as often as there was need, a woman's pardon.* 
When he was young he killed his cook. When he 
was old, and had squandered his immense patri- 
mony, he persuaded Thomas Churchyard to be 
surety for his lodgings, and then ran away, leaving 
the poor poet to hide himself till he could scrape 
together silver enough for payment of the bill. 
While he was at the height of his renown, as will be 
noted in a later chapter, he played the coward, and 
was charged with trying to play the murderer, in a 
quarrel with Sir Philip Sidney. 



* It appears from a MS. at Hatfield, dated 12 June, 1576, that 
Lord Burghley had then to protest against Oxford's conduct in sepa- 
rating himself from his wife and secluding her in the country. 
Burghley, "in conclusion, desires that his lordship will yield to her, 
being his wife, either the love that a loving and honest wife ought to 
have, or otherwise to be so used that all hard and vain speeches of 
his unkindness to her may cease, and that, with his favour and per- 
mission, she may both come to his presence and be allowed to come 
to do her duty to her Majesty, if her Majesty shall be therewith con- 
tent ; and she shall bear as she may the lack of the rest." 



1572] After Leaving Oxford. 53 

In following the story of young Sidney's first 
matrimonial project we have passed beyond the 
years of his residence at Oxford. In the early 
months of 1571 a terrible plague raged in that city. 
The townsmen died in great numbers, and the 
schools were closed, the students being sent to read 
with their tutors in country houses, or allowed to 
return to their own homes. There is an unvouched 
tradition that Philip took refuge at Cambridge, 
whither his friend Fulke Greville had already gone 
or then went. But there is no record of his doing 
this, or of his taking any degree either at Oxford or 
at the sister university ; and it is most probable 
that, his father having just now returned from Ire- 
land, he passed the next few months partly at Lud- 
low with his parents and the brothers and sisters 
from whom he had long been parted, partly at Ken- 
ilworth, with his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, and 
partly at Penshurst, amid the haunts of his boy- 
hood, but mainly at Court, for service wherein he 
was to be further trained. We have no certain 
knowledge as to his movements until the spring of 
1572. 

Of the parents, at this period there is almost as 
little trace as of the son. Nearly all we can be sure 
of is that, resuming his office as Lord President of 
Wales in March, 1571, Sir Henry Sidney was usually 
resident there for some time to come. The duties 
performed by him, however, must have now and 
then taken him to Court, where also, as we know, 
there was occasional occupation for him in winding 
up his Irish accounts and defending himself from the 



54 Sir Philip Sidney. H568- 

charges of his enemies. He appears to have gradu- 
ally regained the moderate place in royal favour from 
which he was too useful a public servant to be long 
excluded, though he never received the hearty thanks 
or the substantial recompense which he deserved; 
and, wherever he and his son may have been, his wife 
was evidently much with the Queen during these years. 
It being Elizabeth's fancy to exact handsome New 
Year's gifts from those about her, Lady Sidney pre- 
sented to her on the 1st of January, 1572, according 
to the Court inventory, " a ring of gold, with a 
mount of diamonds containing a lozenge diamond 
on the top, with three diamonds on either side of 
the ring." This is the first compliment of the sort 
from Lady Sidney of which we have record ; but we 
read of others in future years. They were tokens 
either of revived friendship with the Queen or of 
desire to win her favour. 

Lady Sidney was at Court on the 2d of May, 
1572, at any rate, and on that day she wrote a note- 
worthy letter to Lord Burghley. The Queen, it 
seems, had offered Sir Henry Sidney a peerage, and 
had even pressed it upon him, but had not proposed 
to accompany it with any such grant of land or fat 
pension as she was fond of bestowing on the Earl 
of Leicester or any of her other special favourites. 
To Lord Burghley, therefore, Lady Sidney ap- 
pealed in her and her husband's " hard distress," as 
she explained, " considering our ill ability to main- 
tain a higher title than that we now possess, since 
titles of greater calling cannot well be wielded but 
with some amendment at the prince's hand of a 



1572] The Fortunes of His Family. 55 

ruinated state, or else to his discredit greatly that 
must take them upon him." "Truly, my lord," she 
said, " I do find my lord my husband greatly dis- 
mayed with his hard choice which is presently 
offered him, as either to be a baron, called in the 
number of many far more able than himself to main- 
tain it withal, or else, in refusing it, to incur her 
Highness's displeasure." And unless Lord Burgh- 
ley could induce the Queen to couple a substantial 
gift with the proffered honour, which clearly would 
have been welcome to Lady Sidney, and doubtless 
also to her husband, she implored him to add to all 
his other kindnesses to the family by "staying the 
motion of this title to be any further offered." The 
prayer was so far answered that Sir Henry Sidney 
was never made a peer. 

Three weeks after the date of Lady Sidney's let- 
ter, her son went abroad to learn lessons that were 
to help him in making a career for himself, and 
henceforward we shall be able to follow his course 
much more precisely than has thus far been possible. 
But before we cross the sea with him, it will be con- 
venient to break through the order of chronology in 
order to note a mysterious reference to him in a let- 
ter written seventeen months after he had started on 
his travels. 

On the 26th of October, 1573, Messrs. Nicholas 
Poyntz, Richard Berkeley, Thomas Throckmorton, 
and Giles Poyntz wrote thus to Lord Berkeley: 
" Because you are over-resolutely determined to have 
your daughter to inherit your land, and not to give 
the same to any heir male of your house, which is 



56 Sir Philip Sidney. [1572 

great pity, we think it necessary for you, upon rea- 
sonable conditions, to accept the offer of Mr. Philip 
Sidney, if the same be again made. If also a further 
offer be made by Mr. Robert Sidney for one of your 
daughters, we likewise hold the same nothing neces- 
sary for you to refuse." * 

As to the grounds for this formal notification of 
the second marriage project that was made for Philip 
Sidney before he was nineteen years old, or of the 
similar project for his little brother Robert, who was 
now only ten, we are not informed ; nor do we know 
anything either of the antecedents of the proposal 
or threat of Lord Berkeley's four plain-speaking 
correspondents, or of its sequel, save that neither 
Philip nor Robert married a daughter of his lord- 
ship. Lord Berkeley, the twelfth peer of the name, 
was a somewhat eccentric person. His chief pleasure 
in life was hunting. Queen Elizabeth visited him at 
Berkeley Castle in 1563, when he was about thirty, 
and her courtiers made such havoc of his deer-park, 
that, in his wrath at the mischief they had done, he 
cleared out all the deer that remained and turned it 
into pasture-land. Thereupon her Majesty sent him 
word that he must be careful as to his behaviour, 
seeing that my lord of Leicester greatly desired to 
include Berkeley Castle among his possessions. 



* This document is among the MSS. in the possession of Lord 
Fitzhardinge at Berkeley Castle. 



S-TOlipp Sidney 



Sfljr Sidney 




PHILIP SIDNEY AND HIS BROTHER ROBERT AS YOUTHS. 

FROM AN ENGRAVING, BY O. LACOUR, OF THE PAINTING AT PENSHURST. 




CHAPTER IV. 




A VISIT TO PARIS. 

1572. 

N the last week of May, 1 572, the 
Earl of Lincoln, at the head of 
a brilliant company, left Lon- 
don for Paris on a special mis- 
sion from Queen Elizabeth to 
King Charles the Ninth of 
France. In his party was, ac- 
cording to the wording of the passport issued in 
the Queen's name, " her trusty and well-beloved 
Philip Sidney, Esquire, licensed to go out of Eng- 
land into parts beyond the seas, with three servants, 
four horses, and all other requisites, and to remain 
the space of two years immediately following his 
departure out of the realm, for his attaining the 
knowledge of foreign languages." 

The young traveller took with him a letter of 
introduction from the Earl of Leicester to Mr. 
Francis Walsingham, her Majesty's regular ambas- 
sador at the Court of France. " I have thought 

57 



58 Sir Philip Sidney. [1572 

good," wrote Leicester, " to commend him by these 
my friendly lines unto you, as unto one I am well 
assured will have a special care of him during his 
abode there, He is young and raw, and no doubt 
shall find those countries, and the demeanours of 
the people, somewhat strange unto him ; in which 
respect your good advice and counsel shall greatly 
behove him for his better directions, which I do 
most heartily pray you to vouchsafe him, with any 
other friendly assistance you shall think needful for 
him." Philip Sidney, in his eighteenth year, was 
certainly young and raw, and in need of direction 
and assistance from his seniors amid the strange 
demeanours of the people he was presently to visit ; 
but he had had some experience of court life, and 
was already an apt observer and shrewd critic of the 
political complications as well as of the courtly 
arrangements of his day. 

The purpose of the Earl of Lincoln's mission was 
to forward a fresh project that was on foot for pro- 
viding Queen Elizabeth with a husband. All through 
the past thirteen years of Elizabeth's reign it had 
been the constant prayer of her subjects that she 
would marry, and thus afford reasonable hope of a 
peaceful succession to the throne ; and in these 
years she had had suitors enough and to spare. If 
she had ever gravely thought of marrying Lord 
Robert Dudley, whom there can be small doubt she 
would have preferred to anyone else, that thought 
had been finally abandoned about the time when she 
made him Earl of Leicester, and all other plans had 
been quickly discarded. Now, however, fresh 



1572] The Earl of Lincoln s Mission, 59 

reasons on the score of policy were urged for her 
marrying someone, and her own whim harmonised 
with the weighty advice of her counsellors in favour 
of her mating, at the age of thirty-eight, with a lad 
of nineteen — the Duke of Alencon, youngest brother 
of King Charles of France, and son of Catherine de' 
Medici, the real ruler of the country. Overtures 
were made as early as the autumn of 1570, when 
Walsingham wrote home urging the union, and 
reporting how well it was thought of by the Queen- 
Mother and the whole French Court ; and it was 
highly commended by Burghley, Leicester, and 
others from whom the Queen was sometimes willing 
to ask guidance. It was one of the grounds on 
which a treaty of amity between Elizabeth and 
Charles was signed at Blois on the 19th of April, 
1572, and to further the negotiations an interchange 
of special embassies was arranged for the following 
month. The Duke of Montmorenci was sent with a 
large suite to London, but, being delayed on the 
way, he only arrived on the 9th of June, his lateness 
in coming being, as Lord Burghley informed one of 
his correspondents, a cause of much annoyance to 
all the husbands, whose wives were put to great 
expense in waiting at Court to take part in the 
gorgeous reception. Meanwhile, the Earl of Lin- 
coln, with Philip Sidney under his charge, had 
reached Paris. 

The ambassador and his party, quitting London 
on the 26th of May and taking ship from Dover, 
entered the French capital on the 7th of June. 
They were there gaily entertained during a fortnight, 



60 Sir Philip Sidney, [1572 

in the course of which the Treaty of Blois was 
ratified, and on the 20th of June they started on 
their way back to England. 

Young Sidney did not, of course, return with 
them. He stayed on in Paris for nearly three 
months, and on the 9th of August the King, " desir- 
ing well and favourably to treat him on account of 
the good and commendable knowledge which was 
in him," bestowed on him the title of Baron, and 
appointed him by a formal document to be a Gentle- 
man-in-Ordinary of the Royal Bedchamber. Hence 
we may infer that he was more or less in residence 
at Court, though he appears to have lived generally 
with Walsingham, his firm friend henceforth through 
life, and eleven years later his father-in-law. 

Walsingham's age was now six and thirty. Edu- 
cated at Cambridge, and a Protestant by conviction, 
he had lived abroad throughout Queen Mary's 
reign, using the time well in studying the lan- 
guages and institutions of the countries of Western 
Europe. On Elizabeth's accession he had returned 
to England, and in 1561 he had entered the service 
of the Crown. Since August, 1570, he had been 
ambassador in Paris, and his courtly bearing, his 
extensive learning, and his sound practical wisdom 
must have made his society very welcome to the 
young traveller confided to his care. 

Of other society, which may have been yet 
more welcome to him, Philip Sidney saw plenty at 
this time. In Paris there was just now one blaze of 
enjoyment. The old strife between Catholics and 
Huguenots seemed to have ceased, and everywhere 



1572] Experiences in Paris. 61 

there was show of peace-making, in which men, like 
Walsingham, trained to watch for guile, could detect 
none. King Charles, or their mother, had offered a 
year before to give his sister Margaret in marriage to 
Henry of Navarre, and the young king had come to 
claim his bride. In his company were all the Hu- 
guenot leaders, with many, if not all, of whom Sidney 
made acquaintance. Henry of Navarre, we are told 
by Fulke Greville, accepted him as a friend and 
treated him as an equal. 

In honour of the approaching marriage of Henry 
and Margaret there were jousts and dances, banquets 
and triumphal shows while Sidney remained in Paris 
after the Earl of Lincoln had gone back to London. 
Men who before had met in stern battle now broke 
lances together for sport. Men who had cursed each 
other for apostates and idolaters now joined hands 
and thanked heaven that there was once more peace 
in the land. 

The 1 8th of August was the great day of pacifica- 
tion. On it two stately processions entered the 
Church of Notre Dame. The one included King 
Charles and the Queen-Mother and all the great 
officers of state, — the newly-made and youthful 
" Baron " Sidney being of the number, doubtless, — 
who brought with them the Princess Margaret, pale 
and haggard, in bridal apparel. The other was led 
by her intended husband, the young King of Na- 
varre, with whom were Coligni and a brave company 
of Huguenots. Joint Catholic and Protestant rites 
were performed, in the course of which one incident 
must have arrested Sidney's notice and appeared to 



62 Sir Philip Sidney. [1572 

him strange indeed. When Margaret was asked 
whether she would take Henry for her husband, she 
made neither answer nor bow ; so Charles had to 
place his hand on the back of her head and push it 
forward in forced token of assent, she declaring 
afterwards that, having pledged herself to the Duke 
of Guise, Navarre's sworn foe, she did not assent. 

This was an idle protest. The marriage had been 
performed, and Henry might take away his bride as 
soon as the concluding festivities were over. 

Presently the Duke of Guise came with armed men 
into Paris, and by his evil presence threw a gloom over 
the gaiety. But what was to be done? The King 
took counsel with Admiral Coligni, the recognised 
head of the Huguenot party. He could not send 
his kinsman away, he said ; yet he feared there might 
be some small disturbance. Did not the Admiral 
think it would be prudent to bring a few more troops 
into the city ? The Admiral saw no harm, and the 
Protestants believed that care was being taken for 
their safety. 

Coligni was wounded by the shot of an assassin. 
It was a bad omen. But it was arranged that the 
culprit should be caught and punished. And the 
pleasant sports went on for three days more. 

The 23d of August was Saturday, the eve of the 
festival of Saint Bartholomew. The city seemed 
asleep when, an hour and a half after midnight, the 
palace clock gave an unwonted sound. In an instant 
lights were placed at every window. Soldiers emerged 
from hitherto dark corners, and thousands of men, 
armed and muffled, with the mark of the cross on their 



1572] The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. 63 

sleeves, streamed out of the houses and joined in the 
cry, " For God and for the King ! " Then all was 
confusion ; half naked men and women rushing out 
to be slaughtered ; a ghastly mingling of prayers and 
curses, of laughter and wailing. In most places there 
was indiscriminate butchery of all Huguenots. Here 
and there little parties of murderers did their work 
in orderly manner. One such party was headed 
by the Duke of Guise. He hastened to the house 
of Coligni, and sent one of his men to force an en- 
trance. The fellow made his way to the Admiral's 
couch and stabbed him. " Is it done?" asked the 
Duke from below. " Yes," was the answer. " Let 
us see the body," :houted the leader. So the quiv- 
ering corpse was thrown out of the window. The 
Duke looked closely at the face, and when he knew 
that it belonged to his old enemy, he kicked it again 
and again. Then he hurried off, exclaiming merrily : 
" Come, comrades ! On with your work ! God and 
the King command it ! " 

Many such scenes occurred. Sidney, lodging with 
Walsingham, was safe ; but there were sights sad 
and horrible enough to swim in his eyes for a life- 
time. Had he looked next morning from the am- 
bassador's house to the palace, he might have seen 
the King, who a fortnight before had assigned him a 
post in his household, standing at his bedroom win- 
dow, with a broken arquebuse in his hand, trying 
in vain to fire towards the Faubourg Saint-Germain, 
where Protestants mostly congregated, and scream- 
ing, " Kill ! Kill ! " 

They did kill. It was reckoned that at least five 



64 Sir Philip Sidney, [1572 

thousand Huguenots were murdered in Paris, and 
about a hundred thousand in the provinces. For 
seven days the slaughter lasted, and through that 
time blood flowed in the streets like rain. 

This was the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. 
Having seen it, Sidney must have felt that he had 
seen enough of Paris. Had he wished to remain, 
however, the fears of his friends and kindred would 
have driven him away. On the 9th of September, 
almost immediately after the news of the massacre 
had reached London, a letter, signed on behalf of 
Elizabeth's Privy Council by Burghley and Leices- 
ter, was written to Walsingham, thanking him for 
the protection he had afforded to the young English- 
men in Paris, and desiring him with all speed to 
procure passports and safe conduct out of the coun- 
try for Philip Sidney and his comrades. That was 
done, and before the end of the month the travellers 
were on their way to Lorraine, under the care of Dr. 
Watson, the Dean, and afterwards Bishop, of Win- 
chester. 

Sidney paid no second visit to Paris, and^ hence- 
forward kept clear of France. But his experience of 
the "demeanours of the people " during his fifteen 
or sixteen weeks' residence among them, somewhat 
stranger even than Leicester had anticipated, made 
a lasting impression on his character. It quickened 
and hardened his Protestantism, and, among other 
things, induced him to regard with special aversion 
Queen Elizabeth's project for marrying the Duke of 
Alencon, which, necessarily lapsing for a time, was 
renewed seven years later. 




CHAPTER V. 



FOREIGN SCHOOLING. 

I572-I575- 



£g^^*~x^^^ IDNEY'S foreign schooling, of 
f$(v/^^^' J\$l which such memorable com- 



& mencement was made in Paris, 
j was to be continued, with great 
f advantage to him, through two 
I and a half years. 
3 Of his occupations in the 

first half year we know little. In Lorraine, though 
it was a province of France, he was in safe Huguenot 
company, and he seems to have remained there some 
time, probably with Dean Watson, learning French 
and pursuing other studies. Thence, apparently 
without his guardian, he went to Strasburg and down 
the Rhine, through Heidelberg, to Frankfort, where 
we find him in March, 1573, writing at any rate two 
letters to the Earl of Leicester.* In one, of small 



* Philip Sidney to the Earl of Leicester, 18 and 23 March, 1573; 
among the Marquis of Bath's MSS. at Longleat. 

5 65 



66 Sir Philip Sidney. [1572- 

importance, he informs his uncle that the bearer is 
taking to England some choice articles which he has 
arranged that the Earl shall have the option of buy- 
ing. In the other he asks his uncle to return the 
courtesy he has received from the bearer, who has 
employed his credit in helping him, Philip, out of the 
straits for money to which he was driven. This 
second letter also reports that he had spent last 
Thursday with Count Lewis of Nassau, and with a 
German gentleman named Schomberg, whose ac- 
quaintance, as well as the Count's, he had made at 
the French Court. We may assume that Sidney was 
drawn to Frankfort by some of the better friendships 
which he had started in Paris, and he was here to 
meet with the best friend of all. 

At Frankfort he lodged, during three or four 
months, at the house of Andrew Wechel, a printer 
renowned both for his careful reproducing of Greek 
and Hebrew books and for his generous bearing 
towards the studious men who visited this great 
centre of sixteenth-century culture. With Wechel 
was also lodging Hubert Languet. 

Languet, born in 1518, was a native of Viteaux, 
in Burgundy, but a true cosmopolitan. In 1547 he 
was a professor of Civil Laws at Padua. Two years 
later, being at Wittenberg, he met with Melancthon, 
who taught him to be a Protestant, and to whom he 
became so attached that he resigned his Italian 
chair in order that he might sit at the feet of his 
amiable and heroic tutor. His great learning and 
greater shrewdness soon secured for him a prominent 
place among the men who carried on, with more or 



1575] Hubert LangueL 6 J 

less purity, the work begun by Luther and Melanc- 
thon. He was the friend of nearly every leading 
Protestant, especially of Philip du Plessis-Mornay, 
and the trusted adviser and agent of the princes 
who, aiming at advancement of the reformed re- 
ligion, had need of help from one whose clear 
intellect saw through the mazes of European politics 
and made him master of the plots and counter-plots 
in which the friends and foes of his party were 
mixed up. He it was, most likely, who wrote the 
famous " Vindiciae contra Tyrannos," laying down 
the doctrine that kings who despoil the Church of 
God and the inheritance of his saints, who sanction 
idolatries and blasphemies, may and should be de- 
posed by the open revolt of their subjects, though 
not by the private hands of assassins ; a book much 
read by Englishmen in Cromwell's day. He had 
found some warrant for his argument in the St. 
Bartholomew massacre, which he watched from a 
hiding place with Du Plessis-Mornay in Paris. 

Sidney did not meet Languet in the French city ; 
but at Frankfort a rare and beautiful friendship grew 
up between the two. The ripened scholar and poli- 
tician of fifty-four found an exquisite freshness in the 
youth of eighteen who was vigorously learning to 
apply in life the lessons of the schools. The youth 
was gladly strengthened by the experienced and 
lettered talk of one who knew nearly everything of 
note then happening in the Christian world, and 
could tell more than most men would ever hope to 
read about byegone times. Thus, in his "Arcadia," 
—writing nine years later, under pastoral image, and 



68 Sir Philip Sidney. L1572- 

speaking of himself as Philisides singing to his sheep, 
— Sir Philip Sidney acknowledged his debt : 

The song I sang old Languet had me taught — 
Languet, the shepherd best swift Ister knew 

For clerkly rede, and hating what is naught, 

For faithful heart, clean hands, and mouth as true, 
With his sweet skill my skill-less youth he drew 

To have a feeling taste of Him that sits 

Beyond the heaven, far more beyond our wits. 

He said the music best those powers pleased 
Was jump concord between our wit and will, 

Where highest notes to godliness are raised 
And lowest sink not down to jot of ill. 
With old true tales he wont mine ears to fill, 

How shepherds did of yore, how now they thrive, 

Spoiling their flock, while 'twixt themselves they strive. 

He liked me, but pitied lustful youth : 

His good strong staff my slippery years upbore : 

He still hoped well because I loved truth : 

Till, forced to part, with heart and eyes even sore, 
To worthy Coridon he gave me o'er.* 

The final parting was not till 1 581 ; but earlier and 
temporary separations caused sore heart and eyes to 
Languet who, austere bachelor though he was, soon 
came to feel for Philip Sidney a sort of lover-like 
tenderness as well as the devotion of a father to a son. 

They were together at Frankfort for three months 
or more. Then, when Languet's business took him 
to Vienna early in the summer of 1573, Sidney 
went thither with him, to see with his friend's vision 

* It would be interesting to have a portrait of Languet, but the 
only one I am acquainted with, that at Penshurst, is evidently 
untrustworthy. 



1575] Through Germany to Italy. 69 

whatever was worth seeing at the Court of the 
Emperor Maximilian the Second, to be introduced 
to all the learned and devout people there, and to be 
watched over with more solicitude than at that time 
he was as grateful for as he should have been. 

At their first parting Sidney seems to have resorted 
to a pardonable trick for slipping away from his 
mentor and acquiring in his own way some of the 
experience he had been sent from England to obtain. 
In August or September he left Languet in Vienna, 
proposing only to make a three days' journey to 
Presburg. But, once on the move, he stayed away 
for a few weeks, visiting other parts of Hungary. 
" Like a bird that has broken out of his cage," 
Languet wrote half-complainingly, " you make merry, 
unmindful, perhaps, of your friends, and heedless of 
the host of dangers incident to such a mode of travel- 
ling. I am sorry that you have no one with you who 
might discourse to you in the course of your journey, 
or instruct you about the manners and institutions of 
the people you visit, conduct you to learned men, 
and, if need be, serve as your interpreter. I could 
have procured you such a companion, had you told 
me what you were going to do." 

Returning to Vienna in October, Sidney spent 
about another month with Languet, and then he 
started on a longer journey. He wanted to see 
Italy, and was not deterred by his friend's unwilling- 
ness to lose sight of him or fears as to the dangers 
he might meet with. But it was arranged that they 
should write to one another every week. Languet 
appears to have kept to the bargain. Sidney was 



jo Sir Philip Sidney. [1572- 

not so regular a correspondent, and many of the 
letters which he did write have been lost. Those we 
have — of course in Latin — give valuable evidence of 
the workings of his mind and of the influence of 
outside events upon it at this important stage of his 
career. 

He was in Italy some eight months, having with 
him at least one Englishman besides the three at- 
tendants he was licensed to take to France in 1572. 
Through part of his travels he was accompanied by 
Thomas Coningsby, a youth of his own rank, who 
afterwards, but not in Sidney's lifetime, married 
Sidney's cousin Philippa Fitzwilliam. One of the 
servants in his train was Griffin Madox, who was 
Sidney's faithful henchman through life, and to 
whom he bequeathed a legacy of ^40 a year ; and 
another member of the party, of higher station 
in life, was Lewis Brysket, afterwards Clerk to the 
Council in Dublin under Sir Henry Sidney and one 
of Sir Henry's successors, Lord Grey of Wilton. 
Brysket, too, was faithful to the last. Writing an 
eclogue on the death of Sir Philip Sidney in 1 591, 
he recalled their adventures in 1573 and 1574, and 
asked himself, 

"Where is become thy wonted happy state, 

Alas, wherein through many a hill and dale, 

Through pleasant woods, and many an unknown way, 

Along the banks of many silver streams, 

Thou with him rodest, and with him didst scale 

The craggy rocks of the Alp and Appennine, 

Still with the muses sporting, while those beams 

Of virtue kindled in his noble breast 

Which after did so gloriously forth shine ? 



1575] Venice in His Day. 71 

Sidney went first to Venice, and soon after his 
arrival the Council of Ten granted him license to 
bear arms in that city, and in all other cities, towns, 
and places in the dominion which he might visit for 
purposes of study, and to be accompanied by Lewis 
Brysket, his " gentleman attendant," and by three 
other servants.* In Venice he passed most of his 
time while in Italy. He could not have chosen 
better headquarters. The Queen of the Adriatic 
was then at the height of her glory. Older than 
most of her neighbours and rivals, she had quietly 
worked her own way through centuries, caring little 
for the political struggles that went on around her. 
Neither Guelf nor Ghibelin, she had watched with 
but languid interest the Florentine disputes that 
made Dante an exile, and the Roman struggles 
towards liberty under Rienzi. Now, indeed, in 
Sidney's day, when all other Italian states were 
sunk in the worst degradation, there were signs of 
political life in Venice, and forces were silently pre- 
paring for one staunch battle in the cause of free- 
dom. But Shakespeare's picture was true. The 
Rialto was the heart of Venice, and Antonios and 
Shylocks made up the body of her citizens. Hither 
came men from all parts of the world, chiefly on 
errands of merchandise, though, being assembled, 
they knew how to secure other advantages of inter- 
course. Adepts in science and letters found here 
fellow-workmen with whom they could sympathise, 
and from whom they could learn. Arts, newly risen 
to unrivalled eminence, here had better patrons and 
* Calendar of Venetian State Papers, vol. vii., No. 583. 



72 Sir Philip Sidney. [1572- 

more genial critics than were known elsewhere. 
Students of theology here received kindlier regard 
than could be met with in other parts ; and here 
they were able, without fear of persecution, to set 
forth what opinions they chose. 

There were less worthy marks of freedom which 
Venice shared with Naples and the other Italian 
cities, and in which, according to Roger Ascham, 
she surpassed them all. Halting but nine days in 
Venice, Ascham avers that in that time he there 
saw " more liberty to sin than ever he heard tell of 
in our noble city of London in nine years." But 
for the vices which other moralists of the time, as 
well as Ascham, denounced, and which caused the 
ruin of many, Sidney had no liking. It was he who 
translated the proverb, " Inglese italianato e diavolo 
incarnato," into 

An Englishman that is Italianate 
Doth lightly prove a devil incarnate. 

He preferred the society of men of letters and 
politicians, to several of whom Languet had intro- 
duced him by letter. Such were Arnaud du Ferrier, 
the French ambassador, and Frangois Perrot, a French 
resident in Italy ; neither of them strictly Protes- 
tants, but zealous champions of religious liberty, and 
associates with Henry of Navarre. Another was 
Count Philip Lewis of Hanau, a young man not 
much older than Sidney, but with a reputation for 
zeal and courage on behalf of the reformed faith 
which had already spread throughout Europe ; and 
there were many others of the same school of 



1575] Studies in Venice. 73 

thought with whom the young traveller was ac- 
quainted. Then there were the painters. Sidney 
may not have gained access to Titian, at this time 
more than ninety years old ; but he was intimate 
with Titian's greatest pupils, Tintoretto, now about 
sixty, and Paul Veronese, whose age was forty. 
Finally, there were the rich men. His English con- 
nections secured for him the favour of haughty 
senators, and he sat at the tables of splendid mer- 
chants. " Yet I would far rather have one pleasant 
chat with you, my dear Languet," he wrote, " than 
enjoy the magnificent magnificences of all these 
magnificoes." 

In Venice, as elsewhere during his travels, he 
busied himself as much with his books as with the 
places and people. " Just now," he informed his 
friend in 1573, " I am learning astronomy, and get- 
ting a notion of music. I practise my pen only in 
writing to you ; but I find that practice does any- 
thing but make perfect. The more I write, the 
worse I write. Do pray send me some rules about 
composition ; and at the same time put in those 
bits of advice which you said you would keep till 
you see me again ; for I know that your counsel can 
never be exhausted, and there are faults enough in 
me to deserve endless admonitions." In this letter 
he asked Languet to send him a French translation 
of Plutarch, and offered in return to forward some 
books he had had special pleasure in reading. 
Among these were a history of the world and two 
histories of Venice, a collection of letters by " thir- 
teen illustrious men," of whom Boccaccio was one, 



74 Sir Philip Sidney. [1572- 

and a treatise on mottoes by Ruscelli, a friend of 
Tasso. He was evidently making himself master 
of Italian history and literature, with special atten- 
tion to the antiquities of the town in which he 
lodged. 

Some of Languet's " bits of advice " must be 
quoted, as their recipient evidently paid heed to 
them. " You ask me how you ought to form a style 
of writing," Languet said. " In my opinion, you 
cannot do better than give careful study to all 
Cicero's letters, not only for the sake of the graceful 
Latin but also on account of the weighty truths 
they contain. Nowhere is there a better explanation 
of the way in which the Roman republic was over- 
thrown." Languet went on to say that for all the 
money in the world he could not buy a French 
version of Plutarch, though perhaps he might bor- 
row one. " But when you begin to read Cicero's 
letters, you will hardly need Plutarch. I approve of 
your giving some study to astronomy ; for those 
who are ignorant of it cannot understand cosmo- 
graphy, and they who read history without know- 
ledge of cosmography seem to me to be just groping 
in the dark." 

" You have done well," Languet wrote in another 
letter, " in learning the rudiments of astronomy, but 
I do not advise you to work much more at that 
science, since it is very difficult, and will be of small 
value to you. I know not whether you are wise in 
turning your attention to geometry. It is a fine 
study, and well deserves thoughtful application. 
But you must consider what are your prospects, and 



1575] Languet's Counsels. 75 

how quickly you will have to abandon this literary 
ease ; and consequently you ought to give to those 
matters which are absolutely needful all the little 
time you have. I call those things needful of which 
it is discreditable for a man of high rank in life to be 
ignorant, and which, by and by, will perhaps serve 
you for ornament and resource. Geometry, it is 
true, may be of great use to a general in fortifying 
and investing towns, in measuring camps, and in 
every kind of construction. But a great deal of time 
is needed to acquire enough knowledge of it to be 
really helpful ; and I think it very foolish to get a 
smattering of all sorts of subjects, for show and not 
for use. Besides, you have too little fun in your 
nature, and this is a study which will make you still 
more grave. It requires close application of thought, 
and thus wears out the lively parts of the mind, and 
greatly weakens the body. And you know that you 
have not a morsel too much health." 

" I must admit," Sidney replied, " that I am more 
sober than my age or business requires. But I have 
always found that I am never so little troubled with 
melancholy as when my weak mind is employed 
about something particularly difficult." Languet 
had repeatedly to warn his young friend against 
overwork. " A brain too much taxed," he reminded 
him, " cannot live long, and a healthy mind is good 
for nothing unless lodged in a healthy body." 

Partly as a rest from his studies, partly in order to 
see more of Italy, Sidney went to Padua in the mid- 
dle of January, 1574, and he spent six weeks in the 
quiet university town. He was in Venice again 



j 6 Sir Philip Sidney. [1572- 

before the end of February, when he sat to Paul 
Veronese for his portrait, to be sent as a present to 
Languet. After that he visited Genoa, and in the 
middle of April he returned to Padua for a few 
weeks. The last two months of his Italian residence 
were probably passed wholly in Venice, much to 
Languet's discontent, who thought the young man 
had had enough, and more than enough, of Venetian 
sights. 

It was not that the blunt reformer altogether 
objected to sight-seeing. He was very anxious that 
Sidney should join with him in witnessing one cere- 
mony of unusual splendour. This was on the occa- 
sion of the French King's eldest brother, the Duke 
of Anjou, being installed as King of Poland. Won- 
derful preparations were made for the business, and 
Languet urged his friend to be present, both for the 
pomp and glitter he would see and for the opportu- 
nity he would thus have of widening his acquaintance 
with great men. But Sidney preferred to stay in 
Italy, strengthening his friendship with those men 
he already knew, and especially with Count Philip 
Lewis of Hanau. His journeys from one part of 
Italy to another seem to have been in company with 
the Count, and his chief reason for loitering so long 
near the Adriatic was that he might enjoy this 
friend's society. 

Languet disliked the loitering. He was eager to 
renew companionship with his pupil, his son, his boy 
— as he variously called Philip. He was also full of 
fears that harm might come to Philip, lest his health 
should be ruined by the climate, or his life endan- 



15751 Languefs Counsels. yj 

gered through the hatred of all devout Catholics to 
the English, or his moral and religious principles 
poisoned by the evil influences surrounding him. 
This was the burden of many of Languet's letters. 
Sometimes he wrote playfully and in coaxing terms ; 
at other times his words were stern and reproachful. 
" If I thought that my counsel had any weight with 
you," he declared when he heard that Philip had 
gone to Genoa, " I should urge you, as I have done 
over and over again, to keep clear of those places 
which are under Spanish rule ; for the Spaniards, 
with good cause, hate the English, and Genoa is so 
bound up with Spain that you cannot possibly be 
safe there. But I suppose you find pleasure in 
seeing so many vessels being made ready for war ; 
or else there is sweet music for you in the clank of 
the chains of the poor galley-slaves ; or is it that you 
wait in hope of seeing this Don John of Austria as 
he passes back into Spain ? " 

Don John, it may be noted, the half-brother of 
King Philip of Spain, had a few years before been 
appointed captain-general of the combined forces 
despatched by Spain, the Pope, and the Venetian 
republic on a crusade against the Turks. In 1571 
he had won the battle of Lepanto, the greatest sea- 
fight of the century, but not great enough to crush 
the Ottoman power, and he was now carrying on the 
war in Tunis and Morocco. 

Sidney's letters in the second half of his stay in Italy 
show that he was at this time taking too much inter- 
est in politics to have much leisure for studying 
music or geometry, or adding Greek to the Latin, 



yS Sir Philip Sidney, [1572- 

French, and Italian languages of which he was 
already master. His political information was in- 
complete, and some of his judgments were crude ; 
but his remarks on these subjects reveal more 
knowledge and wisdom than could have been looked 
for in a youth of nineteen. He was watching with 
keen eyes, and greater hopefulness than the more 
experienced Languet could feel, the working out of 
some of the most momentous problems that have 
ever been played on the political chessboard of 
Europe — problems in which the craftiest, if not the 
skilfullest, player was his own god-father, Philip of 
Spain. 

Being in Italy, he was nearest to the contest in 
which King Philip, as the champion of Catholic 
Christianity, was engaged with the followers of Ma- 
homet ; but he recognised the greater importance of 
the other crusade that the same champion was 
carrying on against Protestantism. This more vital 
struggle was not newly begun. It had been growing 
for some fifteen years, and, with the Duke of Alva 
for chief persecutor in the Netherlands, had caused 
the deaths of thousands upon thousands. Now, how- 
ever, it was receiving fresh impulse. The Spanish 
forces employed against the Netherlanders having 
been strengthened after the retirement of the Duke 
of Alva, formidable preparations to meet them had 
been made under the wise guidance of William of 
Orange and his brother Lewis of Nassau. With 
Count Lewis, Sidney had made acquaintance in 
Paris and he had renewed it in Frankfort. It was a 
special shock to him, therefore, to hear of the defeat 



1575] Studying European Politics. 79 

of the Protestant army by the Spanish General 
D'Avila at Nimeguen on the 15th of April, 1574, 
when Lewis and his younger brother Henry, with 
Christopher, the son of the Elector Palatine, and 
other German allies were killed. 

Though hardly any of them can now be traced, 
Sidney appears at this time to have written many 
letters to his friends in England, besides those to 
Languet, on political events. Early in May, as he 
reported, he sent to the Earl of Leicester a full 
account of the state of opinion in Italy produced by 
the recent victory of the Spaniards. " Perhaps some 
good may come of my letter," he said ; " at any 
rate I would rather be blamed for too little wisdom 
than for lack of patriotism." To him it seemed 
strange and wrong that England did not go to the 
assistance of the Prince of Orange and his brave 
associates in their grand battle for liberty and for 
principles that should be as dear to all honest men 
elsewhere as they were to the Netherlanders ; and he 
blamed the German Protestants yet more for their 
cowardice and apathy. All save the Elector Pala- 
tine, he complained, seemed resolved to ruin their 
people and disgrace themselves. Some of these 
unworthy princes cared for nothing but moistening 
their throats ; others threw their time away on 
idle hunting-parties ; others squandered wealth in 
such foolish work as altering the course of rivers. 
, In another letter he checked himself in the midst 
of some playful talk. " My dear Languet, what are 
we doing ? Jesting in times like these ! I cannot 
think there is any man, possessed of common under- 



80 Sir Philip Sidney. [1572- 

standing, who does not see to what these storms are 
driving, by which Christendom has been agitated 
these many years. If there is anyone who sees 
what is to follow, and is not moved by it, I say that 
such a man should either take his place among the 
gods, or be classed with the brutes." Yet he found 
warrant in philosophy and precedent for being merry 
in misfortune. " Refreshing of the mind consists, 
more than anything else, in that seemly play of 
humour which is so natural, and so ingrafted, as it 
were, in the characters of some of the wisest men 
that neither Socrates nor our own Sir Thomas More 
could lose his jest even in the hour of death." 

Sidney took life more seriously than is common 
with young people in their teens, and the desire to 
join in the great fight for civil and religious liberty 
against the tyranny of Spain and Rome was already 
strong in him ; but he evidently contrived to enjoy 
himself. Soon after arriving in Venice he talked 
of going on to Constantinople. He was much more 
anxious to see Rome before he left Italy. Languet, 
however, dissuaded him from both projects. 

As it was, Languet scolded him for remaining in 
the south so long. " I fear you will suffer harm 
from the great heat," he wrote in the middle of June, 
1574, "since you are of such tender constitution, 
and knowing, as I do, how eagerly, almost intern- 
perately, you eat all sorts of fruit. I warn you of 
fever and dysentery if you stay in Italy during the 
summer." Nor was the warning quite unnecessary. 
In July Sidney was seriously ill, suffering from 
severe pains in the head which threatened to issue 



1575] Languet and His Pupil. 81 

in pleurisy, and which were thought to be the result 
of drinking too much water. " This I foresaw and 
dreaded," Languet wrote. " If you love me, show 
some care for your health. If any mischance befel 
you, I should be the most wretched man in the 
world ; for there is nothing to give me the least 
pleasure save our friendship, and the hope I have 
of your manhood. The misfortunes of my native 
land, and the calamities that have lately overtaken 
all my friends but you, make life a great deal worse 
to me than death." 

Languet often wrote in this strain. Philip, he 
thought, with the prospect of many active years 
before him, was bound to be hopeful and to use 
every nerve in fitting himself for manly service in 
the world; but what had he to hope for? "My 
life is of no good to anyone, and death will only rid 
me of my miseries. What can be more wretched 
for a man who has any feeling of humanity in him 
than to be haunted by such crimes as have through 
the last ten or twelve years been committed, and are 
still being committed, in my ill-fated France, and in 
the Netherlands ? " Sidney's reply was character- 
istic. " This last letter of yours has troubled me much. 
I can hardly collect my thoughts to answer it. Oh, 
my dear Languet ! can it be that you are unhappy — 
you whom all with a spark of virtue in them love 
and honour? As for me, if any service of mine can 
help you at all, you know how I shall rejoice to do 
it ; for I have nothing that is not more rightly yours 
than mine." 

The service Languet most desired was rendered 
6 



82 Sir Philip Sidney. [1572- 

at the end of July, when Sidney went back to 
Vienna. There, he was detained for some time by 
illness. After that, he accompanied Languet on a 
trip to Poland, and he was in Vienna again, still 
" not in a very good state of body," before the end 
of November. This much we learn from letters that 
he wrote home to the Earl of Leicester and Lord 
Burghley. The letter to the Lord High Treasurer 
was, he said, one of his " scribbles," sent rather in 
obedience to his lordship's commands than for 
anything worth reading in it. It contained, "how- 
ever, a long and graphic account of the state of 
politics as viewed in Vienna, and of the recent pro- 
ceedings of the Grand Turk.* As the two years' 
leave of absence from England that had been 
allowed to him was more than run out, and as he 
was now old and experienced enough for his reports 
on public affairs to be considered worth having, it 
was probably a condition of his being allowed to 
stay abroad for another year that Sidney should fur- 
nish Queen Elizabeth's ministers from time to time 
with " news-letters ,? of the sort that were indis- 
pensable in the days before newspapers. Unfor- 
tunately very few of them are extant. 

For three months or so he was in Vienna lodging 
in the same house as Hubert Languet, who was now 
in the service of the Emperor Maximilian the 
Second. Sidney also appears to have held some 
sort of office at Court, corresponding more or less 
perhaps to that of secretary of legation or attach^ in 

* State Papers, Foreign, Elizabeth ; Philip Sidney to Lord Burgh- 
ley, 17 December, 1574. 



1575] At Maximilian s Court. 83 

modern times ; and for companion in his diplomatic 
duties, such as they were, he had Edward Wotton, 
an elder brother of the better known Sir Henry 
Wotton. Maximilian, though he was father-in-law 
both to Philip of Spain and to Charles of France, 
was a peace-loving monarch, tolerant towards Pro- 
testants and willing that his subjects should be pros- 
perous. In his present surroundings, Sidney had 
good opportunity of seeing Catholic monarchy in its 
more agreeable phases ; and the lull in persecution 
elsewhere — consequent on the temporary inability of 
the Netherlanders to continue their resistance to 
Philip, and on the death of Charles, who was suc- 
ceeded by his brother Henry, a yet more contemp- 
tible king of France — made the study of Catholic 
politics less painful, but not less instructive, than 
they had been of late. 

Sidney had time and inclination in Vienna for 
healthy pastime, and for acquiring some of the 
lighter arts proper to the making of a gentleman. 
The opening sentences of his " Defence of Poesy" 
contain a lively account of the teaching he received 
from John Peter Pugliano, esquire of the Em- 
peror's stables, to whom he and Wotton " gave 
themselves to learn horsemanship." " He," says 
Sidney, " according to the fertileness of the Italian 
wit, did not only afford us the demonstration of his 
practice, but sought to enrich our minds with the 
contemplations therein which he thought most 
precious. But with none, I remember, mine ears 
were at any time more laden than when, either 
angered with slow payment or moved with our 



84 Sir Philip Sidney. [1572- 

learner-like admiration, he exercised his speech in 
praise of his faculty. He said soldiers were the 
noblest estate of mankind, and horsemen the no- 
blest of soldiers. He said they were the masters of 
war and ornaments of peace, speedy goers and 
strong abiders, triumphers both in camps and courts. 
Nay, to so unbelieved a point he proceeded as that 
no earthly thing bred such wonder to a prince as to 
be a good horseman : skill of government was but a 
pedantry in comparison. Then would he add certain 
praises by telling what a peerless beast a horse was, 
the only serviceable courtier without flattery, the 
beast of most beauty, faithfulness, courage, and 
such more that, if I had not been a piece of a 
logician before I came to him, I think he would 
have persuaded me to have wished myself a horse." 

Having learnt from Master Pugliano to be one of 
the best horsemen of his day, and something else 
besides, Sidney rode out of Vienna near the end of 
February or the beginning of March, 1575, in the 
train of the Emperor Maximilian, who then went to 
Prague to preside at the meeting of the Bohemian 
Diet. Thither also went Languet ; and soon after 
the opening ceremony the friends parted company. 

Sidney had been somewhat hurriedly called home ; 
partly, it would seem, because an unreasonable 
report had reached England that he was becom- 
ing a Catholic. Walsingham, who since we saw 
him in Paris had returned to England, and had been 
made Secretary of State, wrote to Languet on the 
subject, and the sturdy Huguenot had to employ 
all his eloquence iu'persuading the English minister 



1575] On the Way Home, 85 

that his fears were entirely groundless. As a further 
help towards righting him in the opinion of his 
kindred, Languet advised Sidney to cultivate more 
than he had done the society of Protestant pastors. 
On his way home, he said, he would meet several 
who were learned and sensible men. 

Whether in search of sensible pastors or for some 
other reason, Sidney travelled home by a very zig- 
zag route. Quitting Prague early in March, he 
passed through Dresden, and then turned round for 
an excursion to Heidelberg, whither he bore a letter 
of introduction to Count Lewis of Wittgenstein, 
holding high office under the Elector Palatine. There 
he made acquaintance with the renowned Doctor 
Zacharius Ursinus, who marked his covetousness of 
time by labelling on his doorway these words : " My 
friend, whoever you are, either go away or give me 
some help in my studies." From Heidelberg he 
went farther south to Strasburg in order to visit Doc- 
tor Lobetius, with whom he had been long intimate, 
a man held in high honour by the Protestants of 
that time. Then he turned back and proceeded to 
Frankfort, whither Languet also came to spend a 
few weeks with his beloved pupil. 

In a letter written by the old reformer after his 
return to Prague there is an interesting reference to 
this meeting, as well as to the portrait of Sidney 
which Paul Veronese had painted a year before, and 
of which, unfortunately, we have now no trace. " All 
the while I could feast my eyes with the sight of 
you," said Languet, " I took small heed of the picture 
which you gave me, and for which, by the bye, I 



86 



Sir Philip Sidney. 



[1575 



never thanked you half as much as so splendid a 
gift deserved. But as soon as I came back to 
Frankfort my longing for you induced me to have it 
framed and hung up in a conspicuous place. That 
done, it looks to me so beautiful and true a likeness 
of you that I feel there is nothing in the world I 
prize so much. I think, though, that the artist has 
made you appear too sad and thoughtful : I should 
have liked it better if your face had had a merrier 
look when you sat for the painting." 

From Frankfort Sidney made his way to Antwerp ; 
but he fell ill on the road, and his return home was 
thus further delayed. He reached London early in 
June, 1575. " On the last day of May," he said in a 
letter to Count Lewis of Hanau, " fair winds con- 
veyed me to this island nest of ours. I found all 
my kindred well, and the Queen, although she is 
certainly advancing in years, still in excellent health. 
To us she is just like that brand of Meleager, which, 
should it be extinguished, would take from us all 
our quietness." 




CROWN" OF QUEEN ELIZABETH 



r^^^w^ 




CHAPTER VI. 

WITH QUEEN ELIZABETH'S COURT. 

1575-1576. 




^ETURNING to England in his 
twenty-first year, Philip Sidney 
found himself in an altogether 
different position from that he 
had held when, at the age of 
seventeen and a half, he had 
gone out, " young and raw," to 
gain experience of the world. Young he still was, 
even among the Elizabethan courtiers and poli- 
ticians, for whom manhood and manliness began — 
if they ever did begin — at least two or three years 
earlier than" is now usual ; but raw he certainly was 
not. 

He had had rare opportunities of studying life 
abroad and the conditions of healthy and unhealthy 
living either abroad or at home, and he had made rare 
use of them. He was now quite prepared to join the 
group of Queen Elizabeth's favourites from which 
he was seldom absent during the next ten years. 

S7 



88 Sir Philip Sidney. [1575- 

He had already formed opinions as to the political 
duties incumbent on him and on others like him ; and 
he was soon to find himself hampered in his efforts 
to perform those duties by the courtiership imposed 
upon him. In the remainder of his life, failing in 
some respects, yet achieving much, he was nearly 
always struggling and striving towards realisation of 
ideals that must have been strong and clear before 
he came back to London. It behoves us therefore 
here to take some account of the affairs in which he 
was henceforth to be involved. 

Throughout the three years of Philip's residence 
abroad, his father, Sir Henry, was usually at Ludlow, 
quietly and honestly filling his office as Lord Presi- 
dent of Wales ; but he had often to be at Court on 
matters of business, and Lady Sidney was much 
oftener in attendance on the Queen. Little as Sir 
Henry was thanked for his services to the State, 
these could not be dispensed with, and at the time 
of his son's return plans were being made for send- 
ing him once again as Lord Deputy to Ireland, there 
for the third time to undo some of the mischief 
made by other and less skilful viceroys. 

Elizabeth was not able to quarrel outright with 
her faithful officer ; and now and then she was kind 
to him, at any rate in words. A gracious, albeit 
pompous, letter was written by her when she heard 
that her god-child, Ambrosia Sidney, had died, at 
the age of fifteen, on the 23d of February, 1575, 
while Philip was on his way home from Vienna. 
" Good Sidney," it began, " although we are well 
assured that, with your wisdom and great experience 



1576] The Queen and the Sidneys. 89 

of worldly chances and necessities, nothing can hap- 
pen unto you so heavy but you can and will bear 
them as they ought to be rightly taken, yet, for as 
much as we conceive the grief you yet feel thereby, 
as in such cases natural parents are accustomed, we 
would not have you ignorant, to ease your sorrow as 
much as may be, how we take part of your grief 
upon us." Thereupon followed an offer in the 
nature of a command. " God hath left unto you 
the comfort of one daughter of very good hope," 
wrote the Queen, " whom if you shall think good to 
remove from those parts of unpleasant air into better 
in these parts, and will send her unto us before 
Easter, or when you shall think good, assure your- 
self that we will have a special care of her, not 
doubting but, as you are well persuaded of our 
favour towards yourself, so will we make further 
demonstration thereof in her." 

There was no great generosity in thus proposing to 
find lodgings at Court, her father doubtless being left 
to provide clothing, for the beautiful and sprightly 
Mary Sidney, now in her fourteenth year. Elizabeth 
liked to have handsome and clever women and girls 
about her, never deeming that her own appearance 
was not made more attractive by proximity to others 
of her sex, even if they were younger and better- 
looking than herself. She was only jealous when 
they thought of marrying the courtiers in whose 
compliments and admiration she claimed a mono- 
poly ; and she was not unwilling that some of them 
should be mated with the courtiers for whom she had 
no special affection. In promoting Philip Sidney's 



9<D Sir Philip Sidney. [1575- 

only surviving and dearly loved sister to be one of 
her maids of honour, and soon afterwards in helping 
to put a rich husband in her way, the Queen meant 
and acted kindly. The change was doubtless wel- 
come to Mary, and we may be sure that it rendered 
the Court life on which he was about to enter much 
more agreeable to Philip. 

Their uncle, the Earl of Leicester, was still the 
chief courtier. Leicester, like the Queen, was never 
jealous of younger courtiers, provided they did not 
venture to thwart him ; and it had been his policy 
from the first to help forward promising aspirants 
to Elizabeth's favour in order that he might 
strengthen his own position at Court. Some of his 
early foes, like Lord Hunsdon and the Earl of 
Arundel, had died or been finally disgraced in the 
course of the seventeen years through which he had 
been playing his showy, and, on the whole, success- 
ful, but by no means dignified or praiseworthy, game 
as prime flatterer and cajoler of the Queen. But 
others had taken their places. One was the Earl of 
Oxford, husband of the young lady whom it had 
been at one time intended that Philip Sidney should 
marry. Another was Sir Christopher Hatton. Hat- 
ton had owed to the Earl of Leicester his introduc- 
tion to royal favour ; but that favour had so turned 
his head and aroused his ambition that he had come 
to be one of Leicester's principal rivals, and he was 
disliked accordingly. Fresh recruits for the Leices- 
ter party at Court had to be brought forward, and 
one of these, a few years older than Philip Sidney, 
and therefore a few years earlier in the field, is 



1576] The Queen and Her Courtiers. 91 

especially interesting to us. He was Edward Dyer, 
an old friend of the Sidney family, and soon to 
become one of Philip's most intimate and cherished 
companions. 

A gossiping letter that young Gilbert Talbot wrote 
in May, 1573, to his father, the Earl of Shrewsbury, 
gives curious insight into the court plotting of the 
day. The Earl of Oxford was in great liking with 
the Queen, Talbot reported, and so was Sir Chris- 
topher Hatton ; but Hatton was very ill and unable 
to attend upon her Majesty. " Now," he went on to 
say, " is their devices — chiefly by Leicester, as I sup- 
pose, and not without Burghley's knowledge — how 
to make Dyer as great as ever Hatton was ; for now, 
in this time of Hatton's sickness, the time is con- 
venient. It is brought thus to pass. Dyer lately 
was sick of a consumption, in great danger, and, as 
your lordship knoweth, he hath been in displeasure 
these two years. It was made the Queen believe 
that his sickness came because of the continuance of 
her displeasure towards him, so that unless she would 
forgive him he was like not to recover ; and hereupon 
her Majesty hath forgiven him, and sent unto him a 
very comfortable message." 

After this trick, Dyer seems to have steadily 
made way, but with too much self-respect ever to be 
a rival of his patron, the Earl of Leicester. He was 
also a staunch ally of Leicester's sister, and of her 
husband. From Chiswick, where she had gone for 
rest and change of air after a serious illness, Lady 
Sidney, writing on the 1st of September, 1574, to 
Sir Henry's secretary, Edmund Molyneux, said : 



92 Sir Philip Sidney. [1575- 

" In all your proceedings in my lord's cause, take 
the wise, noble Mr. Dyer's friendly counsel, who, I 
know, doth most dearly tender my lord's honour 
and well-doing, as much as a faithful friend may do." 
In the same letter Lady Sidney sent messages to 
two of her friends and companions in attendance on 
the Queen. " Tell them I would write to them, but 
I have nothing to tell them but of my unhealthy, 
unrecovered carcase." 

It is not pleasant to think of our Sidney's un- 
worthy uncle being his chief patron and promoter 
at Queen Elizabeth's Court. But we must take 
facts as we find them ; and if we cannot quite ex- 
cuse Philip Sidney for attaching himself as closely 
as he did to the Earl of Leicester, and for appar- 
ently regarding him with unstinted admiration, we 
may well be astonished that his own temperament 
and bearing were so unlike those of the man on 
whom he mainly depended for advancement in life. 
Large allowance must be made, too, for the exigen- 
cies of Philip's position ; and it should never be for- 
gotten that the standard of morals in the sixteenth 
century, even with the austerest moralists, differed 
widely from that of the nineteenth. " Remember, 
my son," Sir Henry Sidney had written when Philip 
was a small schoolboy, " the noble blood you are 
descended of by your mother's side, and think that 
only by virtuous life and good action you may be 
an ornament to that illustrious family." It seems 
never to have occurred to either father or mother or 
son that the family of which the Earl of Leicester 
was now head could be other than illustrious, with 



1576] The Earl of Leicester s Patronage. 93 

virtuous life and good action as its proper orna- 
ments ; still less, that virtuous life and good action 
could be crippled or contaminated, or could be in 
any risk of being injured, by association with and 
dependence on such a head. Of Leicester Eliza- 
beth once said, on receiving from him a letter asking 
pardon for having offended her, and praying to be 
reinstated in her favour, that he " did mistake the 
chameleon's property, who doth change into all 
colours, according to the object, save white, which 
is innocency." Leicester's vices were notorious, 
and though they may have been exaggerated by 
his enemies, they could not but be patent to his 
friends ; yet people of much purer life and much 
finer taste than Queen Elizabeth forgave him and 
ignored them. 

If Philip Sidney suffered strangely little, more- 
over, from a moral point of view, through depend- 
ence on his uncle, and if this uncle was in many 
ways very helpful to him in his progress as a 
courtier, we must not lose sight of the fact that his 
relations with Leicester did not in all respects con- 
duce to his worldly advantage. It certainly cannot 
have been on the score of virtuous life or good 
action that Lord Burghley preferred to Philip Sid- 
ney, as a husband for his daughter Anne, the Earl 
of Oxford, notorious as a libertine and a scoundrel 
even in 1571, when he was but one-and-thirty. 
But at that time and always Burghley disliked and 
mistrusted Leicester, was constantly on the watch 
for his downfall, and, as a matter of State interest, 
was not unwilling to assist it on occasion ; and we 



94 Sz r Philip Sidney. [1575- 

may be sure that if he thought the son of his self- 
sacrificing and impoverished friend Sir Henry Sid- 
ney no equal match for his daughter, he objected 
yet more to have Philip for a son-in-law because he 
was nephew of the self-seeking and vainglorious 
man who was always encouraging the Queen in her 
vanities and extravagances, and so hindering the 
prudent and prosaic building up of England's pros- 
perity which the Lord High Treasurer advocated. 

In Philip and Philip's parents Lord Burghley 
always took as kindly an interest as his unemotional 
temperament and his many public cares allowed. 
Philip also now had another and in some respects a 
more estimable friend on that side of the Court 
which was not given up to frivolities. Francis 
Walsingham, recalled from France in April, 1573, 
had then been knighted and appointed Secretary of 
State. If in statecraft he was not Burghley's equal, 
he was, to say the least, as patriotic, and in his new 
office, and others connected with it, he put to good 
use the intimate knowledge of foreign affairs which 
he had acquired by long and varied experience 
abroad. Less grave or less pompous than Burghley, 
he was a courtier of the best type, too honest and 
self-respecting to compete with men like Leicester, 
Hatton, and Oxford, in the line of courtiership most 
approved by Queen Elizabeth. The mutual liking 
that arose between him and Philip Sidney when the 
young man was under his protection in Paris lasted 
and grew ; and in the absence of his own father, and 
of Languet too, Philip perhaps had truer help and 
guidance from Walsingham than from anyone else. 




SIR FRANCIS WALSINQHAM. 

FROM AN ENGRAVING, BY J. HOUBRAKEN, OF ZUCCHERO'S PORTRAIT. 



1576] At Kenilworth. 



95 



Of Elizabeth's Court at its gayest Philip had ex- 
perience as soon as he returned from his travels. 
Preparations were then on foot for the most memo- 
rable of all the royal progresses for which this reign 
is famous, its main incident being a visit paid by the 
Queen to the stately mansion of Kenilworth, which 
thirteen years earlier she had granted to the Earl of 
Leicester. The party, which included Philip and 
his parents, having left London a few days before, 
reached Kenilworth on the 9th of July, and the next 
eighteen days were given up to entertainments more 
gorgeous, if the chroniclers are to be believed, than 
subject had ever yet provided for his sovereign.* 
Every sort of spectacle and festivity that could be 
devised was furnished in most lavish style. There 
was bear-baiting, much to the Queen's fancy, on one 
day, and on another there were wrestling and Italian 
feats of skill. There were splendid hunting excur- 
sions. There was a play performed by the men of 
Coventry. There were masques, and allegorical 
processions of gods and goddesses, nymphs and 
satyrs. Music and dancing filled up the intervals 
between more novel amusements in the daytime, 
and at night there were fireworks. At one " most 
delicious and ambrosial banquet " three hundred 
different kinds of dishes were set on the tables. 
When her Majesty rode out of the grounds, Deep- 
Desire, as the central figure in a pleasure-provoking 
but grief-pourtraying pageant, uttered this dirge : 

* Readers of Sir Walter Scott's " Kenilworth " need not be reminded 
of the brilliant account there given of these entertainments, but must 
be cautioned against accepting as facts the main portions of the novel. 



96 Sir Philip Sidney. [1575- 

Come, muses, come and help me to lament ; 

Come, woods ; come, waves ; come, hills ; come, doleful dales ; 
Since life and death are both against me bent, 

Come, gods ; come, men ; bear witness of my bales ! 
Oh, heavenly nymphs, come help my heavy heart 
With sighs to see Dame Pleasure thus depart ! 

" The princely pleasures of the Court at Kenil- 
worth," as they were styled by George Gascoigne, one 
of the poets of the occasion, in his collection of the 
" verses, proses, or poetical inventions," specially 
prepared for them, being over on the 27th of July, 
the Queen and her courtiers next went to Lichfield, 
where they occupied eight days in other entertain- 
ments. Thence they proceeded to Chartley Castle, 
the seat of Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, who 
was in Ireland, but whose wife was a sufficient host 
in his absence. After that Stafford, Dudley, Worces- 
ter, and other places were visited in succession, 
and on the nth of September Elizabeth reached 
Woodstock, the scene of her girlish confinement, 
where she was again the Earl of Leicester's guest. 

His three months of holiday-making in Warwick- 
shire and the neighbouring counties, as one of the 
youngest but not the least approved of her cour- 
tiers, must have given Philip Sidney a full taste, if 
not for the time a surfeit, of the gay life on which 
he was entering. 

His brief stay at Chartley may have had peculiar 
interest for him. Here, doubtless, he first saw the 
maiden whom he afterwards made famous under the 
name of Stella. Lady Penelope Devereux was now 
only about twelve years old, and, even if we are to 



1576] At Kenilworth. gj 

believe that all the love he professed for her in later 
days was real, it would be absurd to suppose that at 
this time he regarded her with stronger feelings than 
any beautiful damsel, just budding into womanhood, 
might arouse in the susceptible heart of a young 
man of twenty who was privileged to dance and 
frolic with her in her own home. But as barely a 
year elapsed before there was talk of a marriage 
contract between them, it is fair to assume that even 
at this early stage in their intimacy impressions 
were started which took shape hereafter. 

At Chartley Philip had other matters to think of 
besides courtly gaieties and the youthful charms of 
Penelope Devereux. There, on the 5th of August, 
Sir Henry Sidney received the patent under which 
he was again appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, 
and a week later the father and son, who had spent 
about two months together after being separated for 
three years, parted company for another year. 
While the Queen was being entertained at Dudley 
Castle, Sir Henry, " taking leave of her Majesty and 
kissing her sacred hand with most gracious and 
comfortable words from her,'' started on his jour- 
ney, leaving his wife and elder son and daughter to 
continue in attendance. 

The Earl of Leicester's London residence, known 
in his time as Leicester House, and much enlarged 
by him, but formerly styled Exeter House, and 
afterwards Essex House, was a stately building, 
on the south side of the Strand and west of the 
Temple gardens, with its own gardens stretching 
down to the Thames. It was within easy reach, 
7 



98 Sir Philip Sidney. [1575- 

either by land or by water, of Whitehall, where the 
Queen kept Court when she was in the metropolis ; 
and here, probably, with occasional visits to Pens- 
hurst, Philip passed most of the autumn and winter 
months in which he was becoming an adept in 
courtly ways. 

From London, early in November, he wrote the 
only letter that he sent this year to Languet, except 
a short one announcing, in June, his safe return from 
the continent. Poor Languet complained of this 
tardiness. " I am more than distressed by your 
obstinate silence," he said in November, before the 
second letter reached him ; " since for five or six 
months I have received nothing from you, although 
I have often written to you, and you have written 
to others. Surely in all that time you could have 
spared one hour to your old friend." When the 
long-looked for letter arrived, Languet was scarcely 
mollified. " At the cost of one dance a month," he 
urged, " you could have done all that was expected 
of you. Last winter you spent three or four months 
with me. Just think how many eminent authors 
you studied in that little time, and what good 
came to you in reading them. If in so brief a space 
you could learn so many things which would be 
helpful to you in the proper conduct of life, could 
not that hinder you from burying yourself in foolish 
pleasures ? " But the stern Huguenot softened as he 
went on. "You see," he added, " how unkindly I 
am answering your letter, so full of kindness. I do 
thank you for it, although I cannot suffer you to run 
the risk of squandering your powers in idleness. I 



1576] A Winter in London. 99 

never doubted that you would at once secure the 
admiration of all your friends, and of all the noblest 
men about you. In this particular your letter tells 
me nothing of which I was not sure before ; but I 
am very glad indeed to be told it." 

It is a pity that Sidney's few letters to his plain- 
speaking friend are not preserved to give us detailed 
information about his occupations at this time. 
Languet's replies, however, show us something of 
their purport. In a former letter he had joked with 
Sidney about marriage, and commended to him the 
example of Edward Wotton, who had just taken a 
wife. Sidney appears to have sent back vehement 
protestations in favour of bachelorhood. Languet 
answered : " What you say in jest about a wife, I 
take in earnest. I think you had better not be so 
sure. More cautious men than you are sometimes 
caught ; and for my part I am very willing that you 
should be caught, that so you might give to your 
country sons like yourself. But, whatever is to 
happen in this matter, I pray God that it may turn 
out well and happily. You see how nobly our friend 
Wotton has passed through the trial. His boldness 
seems to convict you of cowardice. However, des- 
tiny has a good deal to do with these things. There- 
fore you must not suppose that by your own fore- 
sight you can manage so as to be always happy, and 
to have everything according to your wishes." 
True enough always, and especially true in Sidney's 
case. 

That Sidney was at this time winning favour at 
Court, with Queen and subjects, is clear. But we 



ioo Sir Philip Sidney. [1575- 

can only guess at his movements during several 
months ; and if he continued to be as well dressed 
and as merry as any of the richer and more experi- 
enced courtiers with whom he associated, it was not 
without difficulty. His father was obliged to spend 
more than his salary in performing his duties in 
Ireland. His mother was hard pressed to keep up 
the dignity necessary to her position in the Queen's 
household. " My present estate is such, by reason 
of my debts," she wrote in plaintive terms to Lord 
Burghley, " as I cannot go forward with any honour- 
able course of living." Yet go forward she must, 
" for that I had, by her Majesty's commandment, 
prepared myself to attend the Court." " Seeing it 
hath pleased her Majesty to hold this hard hand 
towards me," she added, " I am again thus bold to 
trouble your lordship for your comfortable direction 
how I may best in this case deal with her Majesty. 
I am presently greatly to seek what else to do than 
sorrow much at her Majesty's unkindness towards 
me, because it brings me in no small disgrace among 
such as are not determined to wish me well." 

Sidney had his own debts to meet as best he 
could. In August, 1575, he gave a bond for £42 6s. 
to Richard Rodway, " citizen and merchant tailor of 
London." Somewhat later he had to send a boot- 
maker's bill for £4 1 as-, ^d. to his father's steward, 
saying, " I have so long owed this bearer this ex- 
pressed sum of money, as I am forced, for the safe- 
guard of my credit, to request you to let him have 
it presently, and this shall be your sufficient discharge 
to be received at Midsummer quarter," — when, 



1576] The First Earl of Essex. 101 

doubtless, the steward would have an instalment of 
his allowance to hand him, or might be collecting 
the tithes of his Flintshire living. 

Among the courtly friends with whom he must 
have been especially intimate at this time, as well as 
afterwards, were his kinsman and schoolfellow Fulke 
Greville, of his own age, and Edward Dyer, his 
senior by a few years ; but concerning their relations 
in 1575 and 1576 there is no record, and of Greville 
he cannot have seen much, as the latter then held 
some office in Wales. The only friend, indeed, with 
whom we know that Sidney was in frequent inter- 
course, was the Earl of Essex. Their acquaintance 
began in the autumn, when Essex, after nearly two 
years' absence in Ireland, came to pass a few months 
at Durham House, his residence by the Thames 
side, just below Charing Cross, and it was destined 
to be short-lived ; but it was close while it lasted. 

Essex, thirteen or fourteen years older than Sid- 
ney, stands out as the most conspicuous and attrac- 
tive type of chivalry, with all its ambitions and all its 
infirmities, in the earlier stage of Elizabeth's reign 
during which Sidney was growing up to follow and 
surpass him. Too honest to succeed as a courtier, he 
was of too restless and reckless a disposition for suc- 
cess to come to him in any other line of life. Hav- 
ing inherited from his grandfather the title of Lord 
Hereford in the year of Queen Elizabeth's acces- 
sion, and having given some offence three or four 
years later by marrying the Queen's cousin, he had 
in 1572 been made an earl for his services as a sol- 
dier, and soon after that he had sought and obtained 



102 Sir Philip Sidney, [1575- 

Elizabeth's permission to plant an English colony 
in Ulster. 

At his own cost Essex equipped the small army 
with which his experiment was commenced in 
August, 1573; but he had not means or prudence 
enough for carrying it on, and, though Queen Eliza- 
beth helped him with a loan of £10,000, at good 
interest, both this money and the ,£25,000 that he 
raised by mortgaging and impoverishing his estates 
were wasted. Had Sir Henry Sidney been then 
Lord Deputy, controlling and assisting the project, 
the event might have been different. But Sir 
Henry's successor and brother-in-law, Sir William 
Fitzwilliam, utterly unable to keep order in Ireland 
and consenting to be the tool of others, readily lent 
himself to the parsimonious and meddling policy 
that the Queen dictated. He neither restrained 
Essex's impetuosity nor left him free to work out 
his own plans. Essex was insulted and hampered, 
and the melancholy issue of his experiment was the 
massacre of the Scots at Rathlin in July, 1575, for 
which but partial excuse can be found in the gen- 
eral opinion of the day, that no mercy whatever 
was due to enemies, especially if the enemies were 
rebels in Ireland or Spanish foes. Sir Henry Sidney, 
more humane and chivalrous than most, sanctioned 
and applauded indiscriminate slaughter, and Queen 
Elizabeth was of the same way of thinking. Essex's 
cruelty, as it would now be regarded, in no way 
shocked her. She was only prompted by it, in this 
instance, to condole with him on the misfortune he 
had brought on himself, and to send him one of the 



1576] The First Earl of Essex. 103 

graciously worded letters which often did duty for 
solid help or real consolation from her. " If you knew 
what comfort we take to have a subject of your 
quality to grow in this time when the most part of 
men give themselves over, as it were, a prey unto 
delicacy," she wrote from Dudley Castle, where the 
news reached her in August, " you should then ac- 
knowledge that care and hazard and travail bestowed 
in the service of a prince maketh as thankful accep- 
tation of the same from me as from any other prince 
that liveth." A week before, while being enter- 
tained by the Countess of Essex at Chartley, she 
had written more prettily and also more meaning- 
lessly: "If lines could value life, or thanks could 
answer praise, I should esteem my pen's labour the 
best employed time that many years hath lent me. 
But to supply the want that both these carrieth, a 
right judgment of upright dealing shall lengthen 
the scarcity that either of the other wanteth. Deem 
therefore, cousin mine, that the search of your 
honour, with the danger of your breath, hath not 
been bestowed on so ungrateful a prince that will 
not both consider the one and reward the other." 

While Sir Henry Sidney was beginning a new 
term of service in Ireland, Essex came home to seek 
some of the reward and consideration thus promised 
him, at any rate to the extent of being enabled to 
continue the exploit on which his heart was set. 
In 1574 Elizabeth had promised to make him Earl- 
Marshal of Ireland, but the appointment had never 
been confirmed. " I assure myself," he wrote in 
January, 1576, " that your Majesty that hath uttered 



104 Sir Philip Sidney. [1575- 



so honourable speeches of me and my service — that 
hath stopped my course on your own motion, not 
without some blemish to my credit — who might 
have prevented with your only commandment both 
your charge and mine in the beginning — will now so 
deal in the end as may increase my duty and prayer 
for you, and enlarge your own fame for cherishing 
your nobility and rewarding of true service." That 
was plainer language than the Queen liked to hear, 
and Essex received no favourable answer from her 
till May. 

Meanwhile he lived, in something like disgrace, at 
Durham House, visited only by the few friends who 
cared to be friendly to him through his misfortunes, 
and with Philip Sidney for one of his most frequent 
visitors. Strong liking grew up between the two. 
To Essex, well-nigh exasperated by the many in- 
dignities he had received, and full of scorn for the 
fair pretences that had been made to him, the sym- 
pathy of the young courtier, who was resolved to be 
much more than a courtier, was welcome. In Sidney 
admiration for the brave enthusiast who had suffered 
so much left no room for discernment of his faults, 
which few at that time would regard as faults. There 
were more profit and more interest for him in the 
converse he had at Durham House than at Leicester 
House, or at Whitehall — except with his mother and 
sister, — or anywhere else, it may be. We have seen, 
and shall see again, that he had no great fondness 
for gorgeous gatherings and scenes of splendid idle- 
ness. He was never loth to dance with the fine 
ladies or to tilt with the fine gentlemen whom Eliza- 




WALTER DEVEREUX, FIRST EARL OF ESSEX. 

FROM AN ENGRAVING IN LODGE'S " PORTRAITS." 



1576] At Durham House. 105 

beth collected about her. But at heart he preferred 
the quiet company of friends he could trust, older 
men like Languet and Walsingham and Essex, as 
well as others nearer his own age like Greville and 
Dyer. 

Nor was there only male society for him at Dur- 
ham House. We hear of no intimacy between him 
and Lettice, Countess of Essex. This lively lady, 
the daughter of the worthy Sir Francis Knollys, 
whose wife was a niece of Anne Boleyn, and there- 
fore first cousin to Queen Elizabeth, had never been 
among the foremost favourites at Court ; and there 
were already whispers about the too close attention 
paid to her by the Earl of Leicester, who was cer- 
tainly no friend to her husband. Philip may not 
have admired her ; but we may be sure that the 
pretty frolicsome ways of her elder daughter, now 
thirteen years old, were not distasteful to him. Half 
girl, half woman, Lady Penelope Devereux was just 
old enough to begin exercising pleasant tyranny, 
and doubtless liked well to be tyrannical. Whatever 
Philip thought about her at this time, or she about 
him, it is important to note that the Earl of Essex 
had begun to call him his son by adoption. 

The Durham House meetings came to an end in 
May, when Essex received his long-promised ap- 
pointment as Earl-Marshal of Ireland, Leicester, it 
was said, procuring this favour for him, not out of 
kindness, but to get him away from England. Soon 
after that he went down to Chartley, and there, as 
though anticipating the doom that was before him, 
made careful arrangements for the disposal of his 



io6 Sir Philip Sidney. [1575- 

estates. He left Holyhead on the 22d of July, and 
reached Dublin next day. In the same month Philip 
also went to Ireland on a visit to his father ; and 
there can be no doubt that he travelled in company 
with his friend. 

" Good my lord, send Philip to me," Sir Henry 
had written to the Earl of Leicester from Dundalk, 
on the 4th of February ; " there was never father had 
more need of his son than I have of him." But the 
Lord Deputy had to wait six months for his son's 
visit, which then only lasted for a few weeks. He 
was busy in Connaught, suppressing a rising of the 
people in the west which had been provoked by the 
Earl of Clanricarde and his family, when he heard 
that the Earl of Essex was on his way to Ireland, 
bringing Philip with him. He hurried up to Dublin 
in August, there spent a few days in entertaining the 
Earl of Essex and in formally investing him with his 
office as Earl-Marshal, and then hastened back to the 
rebellious district. 

Philip accompanied his father to Athlone, where 
they were on the 4th of September, and on to Gal- 
way. He had a month's rough experience of the 
work in which Gilbert, Raleigh, and many others 
who were afterwards his friends passed some years 
as soldiers in the service of Sir Henry and the vice- 
roys before and after him. To the young courtier it 
must have been interesting to contrast and compare 
the condition of affairs he had studied during his 
foreign travels with the practical difficulties incident 
to the plan, or almost planless vigour, with which 
Ireland was being administered as an alien territory 



1576] A Visit to Ireland. 107 

under English domination. But on the 20th of Sep- 
tember he was unexpectedly recalled to Dublin. 

Immediately after the Sidneys, father and son, had 
left the Irish capital, the Earl of Essex had been 
taken suddenly and mysteriously ill. He had been 
seized with violent pains on the 20th of August, and 
these had continued and steadily increased through 
thirty days. No medicine the doctors provided was 
of any service to him. His body was racked with 
agonies that he bore with manly resignation, and his 
body wasted away. " The only care he had of any 
worldly matter," wrote one who watched him from 
first to last, probably Edward Waterhouse, a faithful 
follower of both Essex and Sir Henry Sidney, "was 
for his children, to whom often he commended his 
love and blessing, and yielded many times, even 
with great sighs and most devout prayers, unto God, 
that He would bless them and give them His grace 
to fear Him. For his daughters also he prayed, 
lamenting the time, which is so vain and ungodly, as 
he said, considering the frailness of women, lest they 
should learn of the vile world." He talked much, 
too, of the state of England, and grieved over it. 
" For they lean all to policy and let religion go," he 
complained ; " would to God they would lean to 
religion and let policy go ! " 

On the 2 1st of September he died, not many hours 
after Philip Sidney had for the first time heard of 
his friend's illness, and of his " being most earnestly 
wished and written for " by him. " Oh, that good 
gentleman ! " Essex had exclaimed two days before 
his death, and when he had lost hope of the young 



io8 Sir Philip Sidney. [1575- 

man's coming to him in time — " Oh, that good gen- 
tleman ! Have me commended unto him. And 
tell him I sent him nothing, but I wish him well — so 
well that, if God move their hearts, I wish that he 
might match with my daughter. I call him son — he 
so wise, virtuous, and godly. If he go on in the 
course he hath begun, he will be as famous and 
worthy a gentleman as ever England bred." 

The message was delivered to Philip as he stood 
weeping over the dead body of Essex. Sir Henry 
Sidney, busy in Galway, did not hear the sad news 
till some days later. " I left him," he wrote, " a 
lusty, strong, and pleasant man ; but before I return- 
ed his breath was out of his body, his body out of 
this country, and undoubtedly his soul in heaven." 

The suddenness of Essex's illness, and the un- 
natural pains he had endured, inclined many to the 
suspicion that he had met his death by foul means. 
The Lord Deputy promptly instituted a careful in- 
quiry as to the circumstances of the case, but with- 
out result. No proof of poisoning could be found. 
Still less was there anything to point out a probable 
or possible poisoner. Eight years afterwards the 
Lord Deputy's own brother-in-law, the Earl of Leices- 
ter, was anonymously accused of the crime, as he 
had been previously accused of murdering his first 
wife. Amy Robsart. The jealousy with which Leices- 
ter had regarded Essex, still more his unworthy 
passion for Lady Essex, gave colour to the charge. 
But there is no reasonable ground for admitting it. 

Equally unfounded, as it seems, were the current 
imputations against the fair fame of the Countess of 



1576] The Death of Essex, 109 

Essex. She may not, in these last years, have had 
much love for her slighted husband, who is not re- 
ported to have made any mention of her on his 
deathbed, and who was far too good a man for her 
to value at his worth ; and perhaps even before his 
death she may have had some evil affection for the 
Earl of Leicester. It is certain that she was married 
to Leicester two years after becoming a widow, and 
it is likely that she had been united to him long be- 
fore by private rites. These were her offences. We 
can charge her with none greater. 

Almost immediately after his good friend's death 
Philip Sidney returned to England and to Court ; in 
fulfilment, it would seem, of arrangements made 
with his father before he left Galway. We find him 
at Greenwich, where the Queen was staying, on the 
4th of November. Somewhat later the Earl of Es- 
sex's remains were conveyed to Wales by Edward 
Waterhouse, and on the 29th of November they were 
deposited at Carmarthen, where he had held pro- 
perty. 

By the Earl's death the fortunes of his family 
were improved in appearance and as far as standing 
at Court was concerned. Robert, the new earl, a 
pretty clever lad just ten years old, was already a 
favourite with, the Queen, and he was taken under 
the protection of Lord Burghley, in whose house- 
hold, from the beginning of the new year, he resided. 
" I protest unto your lordship," Waterhouse wrote 
on the 14th of November to Sir Henry Sidney, 
" that I do not think there is at this day so strong 
a man as the little Earl of Essex, nor any man 



I IO 



Sir Philip Sidney. 



[1576 



more lamented than his father since the death of 
King Edward." Every one wished well to the 
children, he reported ; " and all do expect what will 
become of the treaty between Mr. Philip Sidney and 
my Lady Penelope. Truly, my lord, I must say to 
your lordship, as I have said to my lord of Leicester 
and Mr. Philip, the breaking off from their match, if 
the default be on your parts, will turn to more dis- 
honour than can be repaired with any marriage in 
England." 

That enigmatic remark shows us that in Philip's 
twenty-second year there was a serious project for 
his being married to Lady Penelope Devereux. 
Had Penelope's father lived, the match — which he 
anxiously desired — would probably have been made. 
It was broken off, however, though with what dis- 
honour is not apparent. Whatever pleasure Philip 
may have found in Penelope's society, it is likely 
that he was not himself very eager to be formally 
contracted to a damsel, not yet fifteen, who could 
scarcely become his wife for at least two or three 
years. While he was waiting her guardians deemed 
it better to find for her a wealthier husband, and 
there was nothing left for him to do but praise and 
worship her in sonnets. 




LADIES' HEAD-DRESSES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 




CHAPTER VII. 

WORK AS AMBASSADOR. 
1577- 




fc OW Philip Sidney passed the three 
months following his return 
from Ireland is not on record. 
He was probably at Court, and 
gaining influence there. When 
we next have trace of him we 
find him appointed to an office 
which, if not of much importance, was at least of 
considerable dignity. 

It was the rule in those days for every young man 
anxious to make his way in public life to be em- 
ployed on* one of the special missions to foreign 
sovereigns which were then plentiful, in order both 
that he might gain experience and that he might 
prove his fitness for more responsible duties. Occupa- 
tion of this sort fell to Sidney soon after he had passed 
his twenty-second birthday, and it is characteristic 
of his ambitious temper that, young as he was, he 
somewhat grumbled at it — so his friend Fulke Greville 



1 1 2 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577 

tells us — as " sorting better with his youth than with 
his spirit," and that he only undertook it on condi- 
tion that he should be allowed to render the business 
more serious and comprehensive than had been 
intended. 

The Emperor Maximilian had died on the 12th 
of October, 1 576, at the age of fifty and in the twelfth 
year of his reign. A wise monarch and an amiable 
man, he had worthily held the difficult position al- 
lotted to him. Closely bound by political and family 
ties to King Philip of Spain, he had quietly offered 
steady resistance to Philip's wicked projects. Al- 
though a Catholic, he had given open encouragement 
to Protestants, had allowed them to build churches 
and conduct worship wherever and however they 
chose, and had admitted many, like Hubert Languet, 
to places of trust and influence under him. As far 
as he could or dared, he had helped the Netherland- 
er in their brave struggle for religious liberty, and 
always, by his toleration of free thought and inde- 
pendent action, he had set a rare example of good 
rule. When his son Rudolph succeeded him all was 
changed. Trained by a fanatical mother, and for 
some time educated in Spain and in Spanish policy 
by Philip, who designed him for his heir, Rudolph 
had been corrupted by superstition and bigotry. 
Among his first acts were the persecution of Protes- 
tants, the banishment of their leaders, and the for- 
cing of orthodox catechisms upon their schools. 

Nor was the accession of Rudolph the Second the 
only disaster that at this time fell upon Germany. 
The Elector Palatine, Frederick the Third, had died 



1577] A Crisis in European Politics. 1 1 3 

two days after Maximilian. Frederick had stirred 
up strife among his people by the violent introduc- 
tion of Calvinism, and his elder son Lewis was now 
causing fresh confusion by the violent establishment 
of Lutheran doctrine and the attempted stamping 
out of Calvinist tenets, while John Casimir, the other 
son, was a sturdy champion of the proscribed creed. 
Bigots of both sects, therefore, each receiving much 
encouragement, fought desperately for the mastery, 
and tolerant, charitable men hung down their heads 
and were heavy-hearted as to the issue of the 
conflict. 

Things were faring ill, too, in the Low Countries. 
"The pacification of Ghent," as it was called, had 
been negotiated by Prince William of Orange in the 
same eventful month, November, 1576, and it gave 
promise that the Netherlander, having ostensibly 
settled the differences among themselves, would be 
able to make a bold front against the tyranny of 
King Philip, which had been somewhat languid of 
late. But straightway Don John of Austria, Philip's 
half-brother, arrived as a new viceroy in the Low 
Countries, and made terms with the southern Neth- 
erlander, against the treachery of which William 
warned them in vain. 

In February, 1 577, or a little earlier, it was arranged 
that Philip Sidney should proceed to Prague, taking 
Heidelberg on his way, to convey messages of con- 
dolence, and also of congratulation, to the orphans 
who had lately become Emperor and Elector Pala- 
tine, and to assure them of Queen Elizabeth's good 
will. Sidney asked and obtained leave to do more 



H4 Sir Philip Sidney. L1577 

than that, to confer both with these princes and with 
others whom he might visit about the condition of 
Europe in so far as it affected the welfare of the 
reformed religion and the progress of civil liberty. 
At his request, we are told, the instructions were so 
worded as to leave him free to do anything, so far 
as talking went, that seemed to him expedient for 
encouraging union among the various Protestant 
states and spurring them on to more vigorous effort 
in the common cause. 

The instructions were dated the 7th of February. 
On the 2 1st he received ,£350 from his father, * sent 
to augment the scanty allowance made by the Queen 
for his expenses ; and a day or two after that he 
started on his journey. With him went his friend 
Fulke Greville, released for a time from his duties 
in Wales; also, among others, Sir Henry Lee, Sir 
Jerome Bowes, Mr. Basset, Mr. Cressy, and Mr. 
Brouker.f Of these companions the two knights, at 
any rate, were considerably his seniors. Sir Henry 
Lee, now about forty-six, was an indefatigable cour- 
tier, famous for his prowess in the tilt-yard and his 
tact in such ceremonial duties at foreign courts as 
did not call for much statesmanship. Sir Jerome 
Bowes, as old, if not older, was also often sent 
abroad in subordinate capacities ; but he was a Puri- 
tan, with a political conscience that prevented his 
rising high or keeping steady place in royal favour. 
Both men were doubtless useful advisers to Sidney 
in the work now assigned to him. 

* Penshurst MSS. 
f Belvoir MSS. 



1577] The Mission to Germany. 115 

Sidney was evidently resolved to make the most 
of the work. Over the houses at which he lodered 
during his travels he caused to be fixed a tablet, 
bearing his arms, and announcing his title in pom- 
pous Latin, to the following purport : " The most 
illustrious and well-born Philip Sidney, son of the 
Viceroy of Ireland, nephew of the Earls of Warwick 
and Leicester, ambassador from the most serene 
Queen of England to the Emperor." 

Crossing over to Antwerp, he reached Brussels on 
or soon after the 1st of March. Thence, on the 5th, 
he rode out with Dr. Thomas Wilson, the English am- 
bassador in the Netherlands, to pay respects to Don 
John of Austria, who was then at Louvain. He 
and Mr. Sidney, Wilson reported, were much pleased 
with the audience they had on the 6th, when Don 
John gave a fair and sweet answer to the plain 
words they addressed to him, and made promises 
that would be altogether satisfactory if they were 
in very deed performed.* At the interview, Fulke 
Greville tells us, Don John began to speak courte- 
ously, but with much Spanish haughtiness and show 
of condescension, to the almost beardless visitor. 
" Yet after a while, when he had taken his just alti- 
tude, he found himself so stricken with this extra- 
ordinary planet that the beholders wondered to see 
what ingenious tribute that brave and high-minded 
prince paid to his worth, giving more honour and 
respect to this hopeful young gentleman than to 
the ambassadors of mighty princes." 

* State Papers, Foreign, Elizabeth ; Wilson to Walsingham, I, 
5, and 10 March, 1577. 



1 1 6 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577 

It is not likely that Sidney was deceived by the 
specious talk of Don John, who certainly was brave 
in his own way, but, as Sidney was well aware, by 
no means high-minded. Just now, however, Don 
John was deceiving many who had much wider 
experience than his visitor. With silver speech and 
golden coin he was beguiling the Flemings and 
others, all but those sturdy Hollanders who main- 
tained their faith in William of Orange, into such 
misreading of the " pacification of Ghent " as would 
place them at his mercy and prepare for the formal 
and splendid entry into Brussels which he was to 
make on the 1st of May, before Sidney had returned 
from his journey to the south. 

Proceeding to Heidelberg, the capital of the 
Palatinate, which he reached on the 17th or 18th of 
March, Sidney found that the Elector Lewis was 
absent ; but he spent a few days with Lewis's 
brother, Count John Casimir, to whom he conveyed 
a private letter from the Earl of Leicester, as well 
as more official messages from Queen Elizabeth 
and her Council. John Casimir, being a Calvinist 
like his father, was thought better of in England 
than the Lutheran Lewis. Sidney was commis- 
sioned to urge him to waive his scruples so far as to 
live at peace with his brother, and to do his share 
towards putting an end to the feud among Protes- 
tants which was a scandal to both sects and a source 
of danger to the cause of religion. In letters that 
he wrote from Heidelberg to Lord Burghley and 
Sir Francis Walsingham, Sidney reported that he 
feared the "jar" would continue, but that there was 



1577] With John Casimir. 1 1 7 

something to be hoped from John Casimir, who 
only went to extremes through a mistaken conscien- 
tiousness. 

The subject-matter of these letters fills so unim- 
portant a place in the history of sectarian quarrelling 
in the sixteenth century that they are only interest- 
ing as showing the nature of Sidney's experiments 
in diplomacy. His correspondence further indicates 
that he made careful inquiries as to the way in 
which the German states were affected by the politi- 
cal movements in France and the Low Countries, 
and what was the probable policy of the Emperor 
Rudolph, whom he was about to visit. 

One of the topics of his conversation was amusing. 
It seems that Queen Elizabeth had lent some money 
to the Elector Palatine lately dead, and Sidney was 
commissioned to claim repayment. But the Heidel- 
berg exchequer, John Casimir assured him, was all 
but bankrupt ; the French king had failed in his 
engagement for the paying of certain large sums, 
and consequently neither Elizabeth nor the knights 
of the Palatinate, who provided its soldiery, could 
receive what was due. " I told him," Sidney wrote, 
" it would be a cause to make her Majesty withdraw 
from like loans, as the well-paying would give her 
cause to do it in greater sums. He was grieved 
with my urging of him, and assured me that if he 
could get the payment he would rather die than not 
see her Majesty honourably satisfied. Then I pressed 
him for certain jewels and hostages I had learned he 
had in pawn of the French king. He told me they 
already belonged to the knights ; but if her Majesty 



n8 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577 

would buy any of them, she might have a good 
bargain." The outlook was not bright ; but, Sidney 
added, " Truly, by what I find in the prince, I do 
hold myself in good belief that her Majesty, within 
a year or two, shall be honourably answered it." 

On the 23d of March Sidney and his suite left 
Heidelberg and, after looking in vain for the Elector 
Lewis on their way, passed on to Prague, where 
the Emperor Rudolph, in his capacity of King of 
Bohemia, was then staying. 

Exactly two years previously Sidney had quitted 
the city on his return to England. He had come 
there in company with Hubert Languet, to be pres- 
ent at the Emperor Maximilian's ope'ning of the 
Bohemian Diet. On that occasion the Emperor had 
granted to the Bohemians complete freedom in re- 
ligious matters, and had promised that he and his 
family would protect them in the same. It was 
true, he said, that his sons had attached themselves 
to the Catholic faith ; but he had so taught them to 
love truth and honesty in any form that holders of a 
different creed had no reason to fear them. The 
good man neither thought how soon his eldest son 
would take his place, nor knew how bigoted that 
son was becoming. Everything looked pleasant 
then, and the members of the Diet, in return for the 
favours done to them, elected Prince Rudolph King 
of Bohemia. 

Now Maximilian was dead, Rudolph was Emperor 
as well as King, and the aspect of affairs was greatly 
altered. The Bohemians too stoutly held the prin- 
ciples they inherited from Huss and Jerome to admit 



1577] 



Maximilians Successor. 119 



so much change as Rudolph was effecting elsewhere ; 
but even they had heavy grounds for alarm. There 
was no need for Languet, who had gone to Heidel- 
berg to meet Sidney, and who accompanied him to 
Prague, to inform him of the dark clouds that were 
hanging over the city and people. 

The young ambassador entered Prague on Maundy 
Thursday, and witnessed the sombre services of 
Good Friday and the less mournful ceremonies of 
Easter Sunday, performed by the crowd of priests 
in attendance on Rudolph and his Court. On 
Easter Monday he had audience of the Emperor, 
and, presenting his letters, made suitable discourse. 

After assuring Rudolph of the sorrow caused to 
his mistress and to England by the death of one so 
worthy as the late Emperor, Sidney went on to say 
that his Queen desired to be as closely linked in 
friendship with the son as she had been with the 
father, and implored him to emulate the private and 
public virtues of which he had so grand an example. 
He had been suddenly called to be the foremost 
potentate in Europe ; on the conduct of his rule 
largely depended the welfare or the ruin of Christen- 
dom ; oh, that he would resolve to follow in the 
steps of the noble Emperor who was gone ! In 
Elizabeth's name Sidney urged Rudolph to promote 
peace both at home and abroad, to give no ear to 
such violent counsel as some restless courtiers are 
apt to offer to young princes, and to remember that 
of idle wars the issues are uncertain, the benefits 
none, and the harm manifest ; for war, at best, is 
full of danger, and allowable only in cases of great 



120 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577 

peril and of great necessity, when public maladies 
can in no other way be remedied. 

In speaking thus far Sidney did little more than 
repeat and expand the words of his instructions. 
He added bolder language of his own, prompted by 
his discernment — doubtless under Languet's guid- 
ance — of the evil influences that were gaining ground 
at Rudolph's Court. He besought the Emperor and 
his ministers to rouse themselves, and, looking 
around, to see what dangers were threatening them 
and growing greater every hour. Whence came 
these dangers, he asked, save from the fatal con- 
junction of Rome's undermining superstitions with 
the commanding forces of Spain ? 

Thus addressed, as Fulke Greville informs us, the 
proud Emperor and his frigid courtiers were startled, 
and their surprise was so great that there was little 
place for wrath. Sidney saw his advantage, and 
pursued the theme. This, he declared, was no time 
for listlessness. Neither its inland situation, its 
vast population, its natural wealth, nor its valiant 
soldiery, could protect the great German common- 
wealth from the dangers threatening it. Such ad- 
vantages might have sufficed before, but they were 
not strong enough now; for there was arrayed 
against it a more baneful league than had ever yet 
been known. Had not those two powers, Rome and 
Spain, united in a brotherhood of evil, already shed 
so much blood that they were become the terror of 
all other governments? Even now there was but 
one way of withstanding the great league between 
them. It could be faced by no other means than 



1577] With the Emperor Rudolph. 121 

the formation of another league, a league of all the 
nations that cared for their freedom. This, Sidney 
urged, was the only safeguard ; but here there was real 
safety. "A bond of conscience for the protection 
of religion and liberty" would furnish a stronger 
rampart against the tyrannies of Spain and Rome 
than " any factious combination in policy, any 
league of state, or other traffic of civil or martial 
humours." 

The Emperor Rudolph was not converted by the 
daring discourse of the twenty-two years old am- 
bassador. He tendered his thanks for the assurance 
of Queen Elizabeth's good-will, and spoke haughtily 
as to the course he should adopt in the present 
troublous times. God, he said, was the protector of 
the empire, and would, he trusted, provide him with 
fit counsel for its government. Then he wandered 
off into talk on general affairs, and made no answer 
to Sidney's appeal. 

Judging from this day's experience and from other 
observations, Sidney concluded, as he reported, that 
Rudolph was treacherous, Jesuit-bound, and " ex- 
tremely Spaniolated," a man of few words and sullen 
disposition, lacking his father's winning manner 
towards strangers, yet with some skill in controlling 
those around him. 

Next day the ambassador visited Maximilian's 
widow and widowed daughter. " I delivered her 
Majesty's letters to the Empress," he wrote, "with 
the singular signification of her Majesty's good-will 
unto her, and her Majesty's wishing of her to advise 
her son to a wise and peaceable government. Of the 



\22 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577 

Emperor deceased I used but few words, because, in 
truth, I saw it bred some trouble unto her to hear 
him mentioned in that kind. She answered me with 
many courteous speeches and great acknowledging 
of her own beholdingness to her Majesty ; and, for 
her son, she said she hoped he would do well, but 
that for her own part she had given herself from the 
world, and would not greatly stir from thenceforward 
in it. Then did I deliver to the Queen of France 
her letter, she standing by the Empress ; using such 
speeches as I thought were fit for her double sorrow 
and her Majesty's good-will unto her, confirmed by 
her wise and noble governing of herself in the time 
of her being in France." This lady, whom Sidney 
must have known while he was Gentleman of the 
King's Bedchamber in Paris four and a half years 
earlier, was Elizabeth, daughter of Maximilian, and 
widow of the French king, Charles the Ninth, who 
had died wretchedly in 1574, tormented by delirious 
recollections of the St. Bartholomew massacre. She 
had done all she could to promote peace between 
the opposite parties in France, whereby, if no other 
benefit resulted, she had won the respect of all 
right-minded thinkers on both sides. She was now 
living in retirement with her mother, and preparing 
to join the sisterhood of St. Anne. " Her answer 
was full of humbleness," the ambassador reported ; 
" but she spake so low that I could not understand 
many of her words." 

The few remaining days of Sidney's visit to 
Prague were spent by him in studying the condition 
of public affairs, and in converse with old friends, 



1577] "Memorable Discourses" 123 

among whom Languet was foremost, as well as with 
some new acquaintances. One of these acquaint- 
ances tells how he and others were entertained by 
the ambassador's " very memorable discourses," of 
which he gives two samples. On one occasion Sid- 
ney explained to his foreign friends how it was that 
wolves had been killed off in England, where for- 
merly they had been as plentiful as in Germany, or 
as they still were in Scotland and Ireland. On 
another day his learned conversation was, according 
to the same informant, " touching Ireland, where his 
father governed, and of St. Patrick's Hole, much 
esteemed when time was, at this day little set by." * 
His talk, it is added, " was very pleasing to the 
company that sat at table with him, and no man 
would make any question thereof, especially when 
he saw it approved by Hubert Languet, a man of 
most excellent judgment and exceedingly well 
travelled in the knowledge of things and in the 
affairs of the world." f 

Sidney left Prague near the end of April, after 
further interviews and farewell speech with the 
Emperor, of whom he had formed so poor an 
opinion, albeit just; an opinion which was not 
altered by the handsome gold chain that Rudolph 
presented to him at their parting. 

* "St. Patrick's Hole" was probably St. Patrick's Purgatory, the 
island in Lough Derg to which pilgrims went to do penance in 
mediaeval times, and which Sidney must have passed on his way 
from Dublin to Galway, about seven months before. 

f " The Living Librarie of Meditations and Observations, His- 
torical, Natural, Moral, Political and Poetical" ; written in Latin by 
P.Camerarius, and done into English by John Molle (1625), p. 99. 



124 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577 

On his homeward journey he performed the 
second of the two duties primarily assigned to him. 
To the Elector Lewis, whom he met at Neustadt on 
the 1st of May, he repeated Queen Elizabeth's mes- 
sages of condolence on the death of his father, and 
persuasions to unity between him and his brother. 
"One thing," said Sidney, "I was bold to add in 
my speech, to desire him, in her Majesty's name, to 
have merciful consideration of the Church of the 
religion so notably established by his father, as in all 
Germany there is not such a number of excellent 
men ; and truly any man would rue to see the deso- 
lation of them " — that is, of the Calvinists oppressed 
by the Lutherans. " I laid before him, as well as I 
could, the dangers of the mightiest princes of Chris- 
tendom by entering into like violent changes, and 
the wrong he should do his worthy father by utterly 
abolishing that he had instituted, and so, as it were, 
condemning him, besides the example he should 
give to his posterity to handle him the like. This I 
emboldened myself to do, seeing, as methought, 
great cause for it, either to move him at least to 
have some regard for her Majesty's sake, or, if that 
followed not, yet to leave with the Church of Ger- 
many public testimony that her Majesty was careful 
of them." The substance of the long answer he 
received was that the Elector Lewis had no personal 
misliking of the Calvinists, and that he would gladly 
do much for the Queen's sake, but that he could not 
help acting as did other princes in Germany. 

From Neustadt, Sidney went to Lauterburg, there 
to have further conference with John Casimir as to 



1577] The Dream of a Protestant League. 125 

the possibilities of protecting the Calvinists from 
Lutheran persecution and of bringing about a general 
Protestant league.* He was thus occupied from the 
4th till the 8th of May. Then, preparing to return to 
England, on his way he paid a visit to the Land- 
grave William of Hesse, about which we have no 
details, and he reached Cologne about the middle of 
the month. The task assigned to him by Queen 
Elizabeth had been completed, and the larger task 
he had obtained leave to undertake had been 
bravely attempted ; but he was by no means satis- 
fied with the result. 

It is not easy in this nineteenth century to take 
much interest in the squabbles of German Calvinists 
and Lutherans in the latter part of the sixteenth 
century ; but these were grave and momentous then, 
and, if we wonder somewhat at young Philip Sidney's 
boldness in aspiring to patch up the squabbles, or 
rather to remove them and their causes, we must 
greatly commend the motives that prompted him. 
His motives and his boldness were notable. Two 
strong desires possessed him now and to the 
end of his life. The one was the overthrow of 
Papal and Spanish tyranny, the double-headed foe 
to political freedom and to what he regarded as the 
only true form of religion. The other was the sink- 
ing of all dissensions among Protestants, in order 

* State Papers, Foreign, Elizabeth ; John Casimir to the 
Queen's Council, 8 May, 1577. Where no authority is given for the 
details in this chapter, they are repeated from documents (chiefly 
among the Cottonian and Harleian MSS. in the British Museum), 
quoted in my " Memoir of Sir Philip Sidney." I have corrected two 
or three errors of date therein. 



126 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577 

that they might not only live together in peace, but 
might also be able to withstand the encroachments 
and to baffle the treacheries of Spain and Rome. 

He had found very little to cheer him in his 
embassage. He had seen with his own eyes how 
great was the risk of the Emperor Rudolph destroy- 
ing all the benefits that the Emperor Maximilian 
had conferred on the princes and people under him 
or within his influence. He was forced to admit 
that the Protestant league, which his heart was set 
on forming, met with favour from none but John 
Casimir, and one or two others, and that even they 
were disposed to enter upon it rather out of compli- 
ment to Queen Elizabeth than for any stronger rea- 
son. The rest of the Protestant leaders, he mournfully 
declared, thought only of growing rich and amusing 
themselves, of seeking their own safety — which was 
no safety — though all the world might be on fire 
around them. " Every day," he wrote, " my hope 
grows less and less." 

Hubert Languet, to whom Sidney chiefly owed 
his enthusiasm on this subject, had been with him 
during several weeks. At Cologne they parted. 
The noble old Huguenot had to go back to his 
duties and his griefs in Prague, or Vienna, or other 
parts of Germany. " I received incredible delight 
from our intercourse," he wrote a month later ; "but 
I feel now just as they do who gladly drink too 
much water when they are hot, and get a fever in 
consequence. My great pleasure brought about a 
greater sorrow than I ever before endured ; and 
it has by no means left me now." 



1577] With William the Silent. 127 

Meanwhile Sidney made a more agreeable ending 
of his tour as diplomatist than he had expected. 
The mission assigned to him being over, as he 
thought, he was anxious to go on a private visit to 
Prince William of Orange; but from this Languet 
dissuaded him, on the ground that the Queen might 
be angry if he exceeded his instructions. He was 
well pleased when a letter arrived from England, 
bidding him turn aside in his homeward journey in 
order to convey to William her Majesty's congratu- 
lations on the birth of his son.* 

Having reached Antwerp on or before the 27th of 
May, the ambassador accordingly proceeded on that 
day to Breda, and thence on the 28th to Geertruiden- 
berg, where he met the Prince of Orange, and was by 
him taken to Dort, or Dordrecht, William's residence 
at that time. The three or four days that followed not 
only sufficed for the formal delivery of his message 
by Sidney and for his sharing in the christening cere- 
mony, when he stood godfather to the lately born 
baby, but also afforded opportunity for the establish- 
ment of a firm friendship between the sturdy cham- 
pion of Dutch liberties, now forty-four years old, 
and the young Englishman of two-and-twenty, who 
was dreaming of and sighing for the regeneration of 
all Europe by means of a Protestant league. 

Leaving Dordrecht on the 2d of June, with a 
letter of thanks from Prince William to Queen 
Elizabeth in his charge, and a " fair jewel " which 

* State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth ; Dr. Thomas Wilson to Lord 
Burghley, 28 May, 1577, and the Prince of Orange to Queen Elizabeth, 
2 June, 1577. 



128 Sh Philip Sidney. [1577 

the Princess of Orange had given him as a keepsake, 
Sidney made quick passage to London, where he 
and all his suite arrived in good health, with the 
exception of Fulke Greville, whom sea-sickness 
compelled to lie by at Rochester. 

Mr. Secretary Walsingham wrote thus on the 9th 
of June from Greenwich, where the Queen was hold- 
ing Court, to the Lord Deputy : " I am to impart 
unto you the return of the young gentlemen, Mr. 
Sidney, your son, whose message, very sufficiently 
performed, and the relating thereof, is no less grate- 
fully received and well liked of her Majesty than 
the honourable opinion he hath left behind with all 
the princes with whom he had to negotiate hath left 
a most sweet savour and grateful remembrance of 
his name in those parts. The gentleman hath given 
no small arguments of great hope, the fruits whereof 
I doubt not but your lordship shall reap, as the 
benefit of the good parts that are in him, and whereof 
he hath given some taste in this voyage, is to re- 
dound to more than your lordship and himself. 
There hath not been any gentleman, I am sure, 
these many years, that hath gone through so hon- 
ourable a charge with as great commendations as 
he : in consideration whereof I could not but com- 
municate this part of my joy with your lordship, 
being no less refreshing unto me in these my 
troublesome businesses than the soil is to the chafed 
stag." 




CHAPTER VIII. 




AS SON AND COURTIER. 

1577-1578. 

HILE Philip Sidney was out of 
England his sister Mary was 
married to Henry Herbert, the 
second Earl of Pembroke. This, 
if scarcely an ideal union, seems 
not to have been unwelcome to 
Mary or to have caused her un- 
happiness, and it was helpful to Philip in providing 
him with another relative at Court who, though less 
influential, was richer and worthier than his uncle, the 
Earl of Leicester. 

The Earl of Pembroke's father, whose wife was 
sister to Catherine Parr, the last consort of Henry 
the Eighth, had been in great favour during that 
monarch's later years, and had acquired much wealth 
by the spoliation of Church lands. He had prospered 
as a zealous Protestant in King Edward's day, as a 
zealous Catholic under Queen Mary, and as a zealous 
Protestant again under Queen Elizabeth, until his 
9 129 



130 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577- 

death in 1570. To please the Duke of Northumber- 
land, he had married his son, then Lord Herbert and 
a youth of about sixteen, to Catherine, the sister of 
Lady Jane Grey, on the day of Lady Jane's mar- 
riage with Lord Guildford Dudley ; but this union 
was never completed, and the parties were divorced 
five weeks afterwards with Queen Mary's consent. 
Lord Herbert's first real wife, Lady Catherine Tal- 
bot, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, died in 
1575. Mainly, it would seem, by the Earl of Leices- 
ter's arrangement, but with Sir Henry Sidney's full 
concurrence, the widower — now Earl of Pembroke 
and owner of Baynard's Castle, the sometime royal 
palace near to Paul's Wharf on the Thames ; of Wil- 
ton, the stateliest mansion in Wiltshire ; and of half 
a score of other houses and demesnes — was in the 
spring of 1577 secured as a husband for Mistress 
Mary Sidney. The lady was not yet sixteen years 
of age ; her husband was forty. 

" I find to my exceeding great comfort," Sir Henry 
wrote to his brother-in-law from Ireland, " the likeli- 
hood of a marriage between my lord of Pembroke 
and my daughter ; which great honour to me, my 
mean lineage and kin, I attribute to my match in 
your noble house. So joyfully have I at heart that 
my dear child hath so happy an advancement as this 
is, as, in troth, I would lie in close prison a year 
rather than it should break." There was evident 
exaggeration in Sir Henry Sidney's phrases, but it is 
clear that he approved the match, and, poor as he 
was, he undertook to provide his daughter with a 
dowry of ,£2,000, which he confessed to be very 



1578] Mary Sidneys Marriage. 131 

much smaller than such a son-in-law might expect.* 
" In troth," he said in his letter to Leicester, " I have 
it not ; but borrow it I must, and so I will. And if 
your lordship will get me leave that I may feast my 
eyes with that joyful sight of their coupling, I will 
give her a cup worth .£500. Good my lord, bear 
with my poverty ; for, if I had it, little would I 
regard any sum of money, but willingly would give 
it, protesting before Almighty God that if He and 
all the powers on earth would give me my choice of 
a husband for her, I would choose the Earl of 
Pembroke." 

Leave was not given to Sir Henry to be present at 
the wedding, which took place on the 21st of April. 
At the end of May Leicester went down to Wilton 
to tender his compliments to the new Countess of 
Pembroke, and Philip followed on the same errand 
about two months later, as soon as he could be 
spared from Court. 

This visit to Wilton in July, 1577, was the first of 
many. Henceforward, whenever he could absent 
himself from Court, Philip seems to have gone 
oftener to Wilton than to Penshurst for rest and 
refreshment. When in London, also, he appears to 
have been as much at home in Baynard's Castle, the 
abode of his sister and her husband, as at Leicester 
House. He was generally, however, like his mother, 
in close attendance on the Queen, and moving about 
with her. 



* In a letter written a year later, Sir Henry Sidney gave the amount 
of his daughter's dowry, for which he had made himself responsible, 
as ;£ 3,000. 



132 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577- 

He was at Greenwich with Elizabeth and her 
other chief favourites for some little time after his 
return to England in June. Thence he followed the 
Court to Richmond, and at the end of the month he 
was thinking of going to Ireland on a second visit to 
his father. His father was just now in need of all 
the comfort Philip's society could give him ; but the 
project was abandoned, apparently because it was 
found that Philip might be more useful to Sir Henry 
in England than in Ireland. 

The Lord Deputy's sturdy performance of his 
duty had again, as in each of his earlier terms of 
office in Ireland, brought upon him the opposition 
of the Earl of Ormond and the other Irish noblemen 
who professed allegiance to the Queen ; and the 
Queen, as heretofore, took the noblemen's side, 
partly because she liked flattery, and partly because 
Sir Henry Sidney, in his efforts to keep order in the 
country, persisted in spending more money than she 
approved. " That Henry Sidney," she exclaimed 
once, and perhaps many times, stamping with her 
foot the while, " doth always seek to put us to 
charge." And she objected as much to charge 
being laid upon Ormond and the others as upon 
herself. 

That was the state of affairs when Philip Sidney 
returned to his place, and took higher place than he 
had yet occupied, in Queen Elizabeth's favour. All 
through the summer of 1577, except during the few 
weeks he passed at Wilton, he was busy, while him- 
self in the sunshine of the royal smile, considering 
and scheming with Walsingham and others, especially 



1578] Sir Henrys Fresh Troubles. 133 

with Edward Waterhouse, who was at this time a 
sort of agent of Sir Henry in England, how to 
remove from his father the shadow of the royal 
frown. At the end of August Waterhouse went to 
Wilton, " as well to do my duty to the Countess of 
Pembroke " — so he wrote to Sir Henry — " as to have 
some speech with Mr. Philip concerning your lord- 
ship's affairs, and to understand his advice, what 
course he would have me take in your lordship's 
defence ; who, because he found such daily altera- 
tions in Court, could advise me none otherwise but 
to refer me in discretion to do as I saw cause." 

There was not much sign of daily alterations, but 
rather steady anger on the Queen's part against Sir 
Henry, when Mr. Philip hurried up to London after 
W T aterhouse. Joining the Court at Oatlands, he 
found among other visitors the Earl of Ormond ; 
and there was an awkward meeting between Sir 
Henry's son and Sir Henry's traducer. Ormond 
stepped up to young Sidney and began to address 
him in patronising terms ; whereupon young Sidney 
eyed him haughtily and turned his back upon him. 
" Mr. Philip," Waterhouse reported, " was in dead 
silence of purpose, because he imputeth to the earl 
such practices as have been made to alienate her 
Majesty's mind from your lordship." But the blood- 
shed that the onlookers expected did not follow. 
Some one — perhaps Burghley, or it may have been 
the Queen herself — intervened, and peace was 
patched up. " The Earl of Ormond," added Water- 
house, " saith he will accept no controversies from a 
gentleman that is bound by nature to defend his 



134 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577- 

father's cause, and who is otherwise furnished with 
so many virtues as he knows Mr. Philip to be ; and 
on the other side Mr. Philip hath gone as far and 
showed as much magnanimity as is convenient." 

Philip, indignant at the way in which his father 
was being treated, not only refused to speak with 
the Earl of Ormond, but spoke out very forcibly to 
the Queen. Of a long letter, long enough and 
closely argued enough to be called a treatise, which 
he handed to her Majesty on one of the last days in 
September, only a portion has come down to us, and 
that not in its finished state, but in his rough draft, 
with erasures and alterations, careless slips of gram- 
mar, and jottings down in the margin of further 
matters to be touched upon. It was divided into 
seven sections, the first three of which are missing. 
Those we have present a masterly defence of Sir 
Henry Sidney's policy and a trenchant attack on the 
Earl of Ormond and the other Irish noblemen who 
claimed the privilege of being exempt from taxation. 
" And privileged persons, forsooth," he said, " be all 
the rich men of the Pale, the burden only lying on 
the poor, who may groan, for their prayer cannot be 
heard. And, Lord ! to see how shamefully they will 
speak of their country that be indeed the tyrannous 
oppressors of their country." 

Philip's contention was that his father's plan for 
the government of Ireland was really the most 
economical that could be devised in the interests of 
the Queen, and the most generous and just towards 
the people. It aimed at nothing more nor less than 
the levying of equal taxes from all and the spending 



1578] Defending His Father. 135 

of those taxes in maintaining such firm discipline as 
would enable the honest to thrive and would press 
hardly on wrong-doers alone. The true persecutors 
and despoilers of the Irish people, he urged, were the 
nobles of the Pale, robbers and wasters of the coun- 
try's wealth, and breeders of intolerable mischiefs. 
If his father was severe either on these nobles or on 
the common folk, his severity was not a whit more 
than was needful in dealing with people so turbulent 
by nature and so easily led astray by their chiefs. 
For him to have been over-lenient would have been 
wrong and foolish. " Truly the general nature of all 
countries not fully conquered is against it. For 
until they find the sweetness of due subjection, it is 
impossible that any gentle means should put out 
the fresh remembrances of their lost liberty. And 
that the Irishman is that way as obstinate as any 
nation, with whom no other passion can prevail but 
fear — besides their history, which plainly points it 
out, — their manner of life, wherein they choose 
rather all filthliness than any law, and their own 
consciences, who best know their own natures, give 
sufficient proof. For under the sun there is not 
a nation that live more tyrannously than they do 
one over the other ; and, truly, even in her Majesty's 
time, the rebellion of O'Neill and all the Earl of 
Ormond's brethren show well how little force any 
grateful love doth bear with them." 

Philip Sidney's defence of his father proves that 
he had thoroughly mastered the state of affairs in 
his day, and could give solid reasons for the policy 
which Sir Henry deemed to be the only right policy. 



136 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577- 

Its logic, or the favour with which the writer was 
regarded by Queen Elizabeth, rendered it for a while 
successful. Having read it through after it had been 
handed to her at Windsor, the Queen declared her- 
self satisfied with its arguments. Lord Burghley also 
took the same view, and backed up his young friend. 
Moreover, a day or two later there arrived a letter 
from Sir Henry containing documents supporting 
Philip's statements. These had weight. " But let 
no man compare with Mr. Philip's pen," wrote 
Waterhouse to the Lord Deputy on the 30th of 
September. " I know he will send it to your lord- 
ship, and when you read it you shall have more 
cause to pray God for him than to impute affection 
to me in this opinion of him." 

Philip's friends had good reason to be proud of 
his success in curbing Queen Elizabeth's wrath 
against his father, and that without bringing any 
disfavour on himself. But it was only for a time 
that the Queen was pacified. For a few months 
she sent friendly letters and messages to the Lord 
Deputy, and then the old grievances were revived. 
On the 20th of January, 1578, Walsingham gave 
private warning to Sir Henry that he must expect 
to be recalled because her Majesty objected as much 
as ever to the vigour with which he was doing his 
work and the expenses he was incurring thereby. 
The letter of recall was actually sent off in March; 
but Sir Henry was not able to comply with it until 
September. 

All through this trying period his interests were 
carefully watched, and as far as might be, protected, 



1578] Defending His Father. 137 

by Philip ; and not by Philip alone. " In the mean- 
time," Philip wrote on the 25th of April, in a 
letter counselling his father to remain at his post, 
"your friends may labour here to bring to a better 
pass such your reasonable and honourable desires, 
which time can better bring forth than speech ; and 
among which friends, before God, there is none pro- 
ceeds either so thoroughly or so wisely as your lady, 
my mother. For mine own part, I have had only 
light from her." 

Except during the three or four weeks he passed 
at Wilton in July and August, 1577, and perhaps 
some other and shorter holidays at Penshurst, Philip 
seems to have been in almost constant attendance 
on the Queen for more than two years after his 
return from Germany ; usually going with her when 
she went to keep Court at Richmond, or Windsor, 
or any other of her own or her subjects' houses in 
the country, and, when she was in London, taking up 
his abode, at such times as he could be spared from 
the royal presence, either at Baynard's Castle or at 
Leicester House. The Queen, as she may have 
thought, atoned for her unkindness to the father by 
making much of the son, and, if Philip even at 
this early stage sometimes found court life irksome, 
we may be sure that it yielded him plenty of enjoy- 
ment. He had several friends of sterling worth 
whose tastes agreed with his own, and in whose 
society he could find relief from the excess of 
gaieties around him. He had serious public affairs 
to interest himself in, moreover, in addition to those 
connected with his father's work. His correspond- 



138 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577- 

ence with Languet shows that he followed closely 
all the political and religious movements abroad; 
and he had other foreign correspondents, William of 
Orange and John Casimir among the number. 

In the summer of 1577 Philip du Plessis-Mornay 
was sent to England to press upon Elizabeth the 
claims of Henry of Navarre and French Protestant- 
ism for assistance. He, like Sidney, had been in 
Paris before and at the time of the St. Bartholomew 
massacre, and he had there been much in the com- 
pany of Languet, his devoted friend. But Sidney 
appears to have then barely made his acquaintance 
or not to have known him at all. He now brought a 
letter of introduction to the rising courtier, doubtless 
from Languet, and they learnt to value one another. 
" I am delighted to hear that you have become inti- 
mate with Du Plessis," Languet wrote ; " you cannot 
possibly have such another friend " ; and the remark 
was hardly extravagant. Mornay was one of the 
noblest of the many noble men among the Hugue- 
nots. All praised him for his gracious manners, his 
sound learning, his great wisdom, and his thorough 
goodness of heart. When in June, 1578, he paid 
another visit to England, bringing his wife with him, 
Sidney stood as godfather to their infant daughter. 
Five or six years later Sidney translated a portion 
of one of Mornay's books, " A Work concerning the 
Trueness of the Christian Religion." 

Sidney soon came to be regarded as the most 
proper Englishman for foreign Protestants to seek 
help from when they visited England, more trust- 
worthy than his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, and 




,_ bo 



1578] At Court with His Friends. 139 

with more time to give to them than Sir Francis 
Walsingham or the other great officers of state. One 
such was Baron Henry of Lichtenstein, a kinsman, it 
would seem, of Sidney's old friend Count Lewis of 
Hanau. Sidney showed him all the courtesy he 
could in 1577, but afterwards he sent a message of 
apology for any omissions, on the ground that he 
was at the time so much occupied with his father's 
business. " He is certainly an excellent young 
man," he wrote. " Whenever any of his friends come 
hither, I shall endeavour to atone for my fault." 

At this time, as at others, our handsome young 
courtier, liked by nearly all, and, if envied, envied 
without grudge, was evidently anxious to be useful, 
as well as ornamental, while he was in attendance on 
Queen Elizabeth and during such leisure as he could 
find. 

We have an interesting glimpse of him among the 
other courtiers on New Year's Day, 1578, when there 
was the usual heaping up of presents to the Queen, 
tendered as marks of true respect or as duties it was 
not prudent to neglect. The Earl of Leicester was, 
of course, prominent in this sort of homage. He 
handed to his sovereign a splendid ornament of 
wrought gold, loaded with diamonds, rubies, and 
opals. Then followed other gifts, some of them 
very curious and very characteristic of the givers. 
The pompous Earl of Ormond brought a golden 
phcenix, whose wings and feet glittered with rubies 
and diamonds, and which rested on a branch covered 
with other precious stones. Sir Christopher Hatton 
tendered a cross of diamonds, bearing a suitable 



140 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577- 

motto ; also a golden trinket, imaging a dog lead- 
ing a man over a bridge, which was bordered with 
gems. Lord Cobham handed up a petticoat of yel- 
low satin, laid all over with ornaments of silver and 
silk, and lined with tawny sarcenet ; and his wife 
presented a white petticoat, similarly adorned. The 
Countess of Essex, widow of Philip Sidney's good 
friend, offered a dainty little parcel of ruffs. Yet 
daintier was Lady Sidney's gift of a pair of per- 
fumed gloves, together with four and twenty small 
buttons of gold, each having a tiny diamond set in 
its centre. Her daughter, the Countess of Pem- 
broke, brought a doublet of lawn, embroidered with 
gold and silver and silk of divers colours, and lined 
with yellow taffeta. In odd contrast was her son 
Philip's present of a cambric smock, its sleeves and 
collar wrought with black work, and edged with 
a small bone-lace of gold and silver. With it was a 
pair of ruffs, interlaced with gold and silver, and set 
with spangles which alone weighed four ounces. 
Sidney and his friend Fulke Greville must have 
taken counsel together, for Greville also brought 
a cambric smock, very similarly decorated. His 
other great friend, Edward Dyer, with what may 
have been better taste, presented a kirtle made 
of lawn and embroidered with flowers in gold. 

In return for all these presents, and scores of 
others, down to the nightcaps and the pocket- 
handkerchiefs and the tooth-cloths given by the 
servants, the Queen made an almost invariable 
allowance of gilt plate, which enabled her to mete 
out her thanks by scale. The Earl of Leicester, 



1576] New- Year Presents. 141 

this New Year's Day, received a hundred ounces, 
while the Earl of Ormond was honoured with a hun- 
dred and sixty-one, and Sir Christopher Hatton, just 
now floating on the high tide of queenly favour, was 
freighted with as much as four hundred ounces' 
weight of royal love. These leading courtiers and a 
few others were, of course, far above the average. 
It was no slight upon Lady Sidney that she received 
a present weighing but thirty ounces and three quar- 
ters, or upon the Countess of Pembroke that to her 
only two pounds' weight was given. Queen Eliza- 
beth's affection for Philip Sidney was good for two 
and twenty ounces, while to Edward Dyer was set 
down a gift weighing sixteen ounces, and to Fulke 
Greville another weighing thirteen ounces. 

We must not suppose either that Sidney had no 
pleasure in his almost constant dangling about the 
Court in the months after as well as before this New 
Year's Day of 1578, because he often complained 
about it, or that his complaints were not genuine. 
There is real pathos in a letter he wrote to Languet 
from Court on the 1st of March. " The use of the 
pen," he here said, " has plainly gone from me, and 
my mind, if ever it was active about anything, is 
now, by reason of my indolent sloth, beginning im- 
perceptibly to lose its strength, and to lose it without 
any reluctance. For with what end should our 
thoughts be directed to various kinds of knowledge, 
unless the knowledge is put to use for the public 
good?" And he added: "You see that I am 
already playing the stoic. Unless you reclaim me, 
I shall quickly become a cynic too." 



142 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577- 

There was always a touch of cynicism, along with 
a fair amount of stoicism, in Sidney's temperament, 
and both were called out by his experiences just now 
as enforced attendant on the Queen, and as zealous 
champion of his father's interests. But there was 
diversion for him, leading to the formation of new 
friendships or the strengthening of some that had 
been already begun, in his participation in the sum- 
mer holidays of the Court, which in 1578 were 
livelier than usual, and which were commenced near 
the end of April. 

Going first to Theobalds, in Essex, the residence 
of Lord Burghley, the Queen lodged there for three 
or four days, and then proceeded to Wanstead. 
This place had been purchased a year or so before 
by the Earl of Leicester, and now, having been fitted 
up in princely style, it was honoured by a visit from 
the Queen. No such splendid series of entertain- 
ments as those for which Kenilworth is memorable 
were prepared ; but — and this is a matter more im- 
portant to us — the pastime included a masque writ- 
ten by Leicester's nephew Philip for her Majesty's 
amusement. 

" Her most excellent Majesty walking in Wan- 
stead garden," we read in the preface to this masque, 
entitled " The Lady of May," " as she passed into 
the grove, there came suddenly among the train one 
apparelled like an honest man's wife, where, crying 
out for justice, and desiring all the lords and gentle- 
men to speak a good word for her, she was brought 
to the presence of her Majesty, to whom upon her 
knees she offered a supplication." The supplication 



1578] " The Lady of May." 143 

was for royal help to the suitor's daughter in the sore 
trouble that afflicted and imperilled her. " Other 
women think they may be unhappily cumbered with 
one master-husband," she said. " My poor daughter 
is oppressed with two ; both loving her, both equally 
liked of her, both striving to deserve her." Only 
the Queen's intervention, it was urged, could avert 
" some bloody controversy " between the furious 
rivals ; and the prose appeal was followed by this 
verse : 

" To one whose state is raised over all, 

Whose face doth oft the bravest sort enchant, 
Whose mind is such as wisest minds appal, 

Who in one-self these divers gifts can plant ; 
How dare I, wretch, seek there my woes to rest, 
Where ears be burnt, eyes dazzled, hearts oppressed ? 

" Your state is great ; your greatness is our shield ; 

Your face hurts oft ; but still it doth delight. 
Your mind is wise ; your wisdom makes you mild : 

Such planted gifts enrich e'en beggar's sight. 
So dare I, wretch, my bashful fear subdue, 
And feed mine ears, mine eyes, my heart in you." 

Philip Sidney was at this time apter as a courtier 
than as a poet. His compliments doubtless pleased 
her Majesty as she passed through the grove and 
came upon a small crowd of shepherds and foresters, 
who, divided into two parties, were " haling and 
pulling " in effort to draw the Lady of May to the 
one side or the other, and from whom Master Rom- 
bus, the village schoolmaster, in trying to part them 
by his " learned wisdom," received only " unlearned 
blows." At sight of the Queen all stood still and 



144 Si r Philip Sidney. [1577- 

gazed. Thereupon first old Father Lalus, a shep- 
herd, and then Master Rombus, essayed to explain 
to her the quarrel ; but the Lady of May preferred 
to tell her own tale and to implore " the beautifullest 
lady these woods have ever received " to choose for 
her between her two wooers — Therion, the forester, 
and Espilus, the shepherd. " I like them both, and 
love neither. Espilus is the richer, but Therion the 
livelier. Therion doth me many pleasures, as steal- 
ing me venison out of these forests, and many other 
such-like pretty and prettier services ; but withal he 
grows to such rages that sometimes he strikes me, 
and sometimes he rails at me. This shepherd Espi- 
lus is of a mild disposition : as his fortune hath not 
been to do me great service, so hath he never done 
me any wrong ; but, feeding his sheep, sitting under 
some sweet bush, sometimes they say he records my 
name in doleful verses." Next the rivals stated 
their several claims in song, Espilus's fellow-shep- 
herds, the while, " setting in with the recorders 
which they bare in their bags like pipes," and 
Therion's fellow-foresters " with the cornets they 
wore about their necks, like hunting-horns in baud- 
ricks " ; and there was further discourse by Dorcas, 
an old shepherd, and Rixus, a young forester, who 
exalted each his own calling, and by Rombus, who 
poured out syllogisms and alliterations in grand 
style, until the Queen gave judgment in favour of 
Espilus, and the entertainment ended with a song of 
triumph by the more fortunate wooer, and with 
dancing and merrymaking by all. 

After spending several days at Wanstead, and 



1578] A "Royal Progress!' 145 

being there provided with many other diversions 
besides Sidney's " Lady of May," Queen Elizabeth 
turned back with him and the rest of her Court and 
went to Greenwich. There and in other suburbs of 
London she remained till July, when she set out on 
a progress of unusual splendour. Visiting other 
places on the way, the royal party reached Audley 
End on Saturday, the 26th of the month, and thither 
on Sunday the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge and all 
the heads of colleges came out, by appointment, to 
pay their respects to her Majesty. On their behalf 
was uttered a very laudatory oration, showing how 
the universities had been nourished by her, as by a 
loving nurse, in piety and learning ; and in token of 
gratitude a splendid copy of a new edition of the 
Greek Testament issued by Robert Etienne, better 
known as Stephens, was presented to her, together 
with a pair of gloves, perfumed and embroidered, 
worth sixty shillings. Other gifts of gloves, costing 
twenty shillings a pair, were tendered by Lords 
Burghley and Leicester, and yet others, of the more 
modest value of four shillings and twopence, by the 
Earl of Sussex, Lord Hunsdon, Sir Christopher 
Hatton, Sir Francis Knollys, and other courtiers. 
What Philip Sidney gave is not recorded ; but he 
was certainly one of the company, and he listened to 
a three hours' philosophical disputation, in which a 
prominent part was taken by Master Gabriel Harvey, 
of Pembroke Hall, and which lasted till midnight, 
when the learned guests were honourably dismissed. 
They had to finish their busy Sunday by walking all 
the way back to Cambridge, as they were disap- 



146 Sir Philip Sidney. [1577- 

pointed of the night's lodging they looked for at 
Saffron Walden. 

From Audley End Queen Elizabeth passed on, 
being entertained with feasts and shows at several 
halting-places in Suffolk and Norfolk, to Norwich, 
where homage of every sort was paid to her, the 
masques and pageants being arranged by Thomas 
Churchyard, who was more skilled than Sidney in 
that kind of work. 

After lingering for some time in the neighbourhood 
of Norwich, the Queen went home by way of Wan- 
stead. But she had quitted that place before the 20th 
of September, when the Earl of Leicester was there 
privately wedded to the Countess of Essex, whose 
widowhood had lasted two years all but a day. Long 
before, according to rumour, there had been yet 
more clandestine espousals, and the report of them 
having come to the ears of Sir Francis Knollys, the 
Countess's father, that sturdy old Puritan had in- 
sisted on Leicester's clearing her name from all 
ground of scandal. Even this Wanstead marriage 
was as secret as possible, only Sir Francis Knollys, 
and Leicester's brother, the Earl of Warwick, with 
one or two other witnesses, being present ; and for 
some while longer the Countess of Leicester con- 
tinued to be known as the Countess of Essex. 

Meanwhile Philip Sidney was probably either with 
the Queen, now at Hampton Court, or with his 
mother, who was lying ill at Chiswick. His father 
was lying ill at Chester. Having wound up his neces- 
sary business in Dublin, Sir Henry had left Ireland 
near the beginning of September and had travelled 



15781 An Angry Letter. 147 

as far as Chester, where he was forced to halt. From 
the house of Dr. Trevor, in the outskirts of that 
city, he wrote on the 1 8th to inform the Queen 
and her Lord High Treasurer, that he had been de- 
tained there by sickness but that he was sending 
his secretary, Edmund Molyneux, to report upon 
his affairs, and should proceed on his journey to 
London as soon as he was able, bringing with him 
the Earl of Clanricarde, whom he had not dared to 
leave behind him in Ireland, for fear of his starting 
a fresh rebellion.* 

Molyneux appears to have been at all times a 
faithful friend and servant to Sir Henry Sidney and 
the rest of the family ; but in the spring Philip had 
wrongly suspected him of treachery. Writing to his 
father in April, Philip had said : " I must needs im- 
pute it to some men about you that there is little 
written from you or to you that is not known to your 
professed enemies.' , On the 31st of May he wrote 
very sharply to Molyneux: "Few words are best. 
My letters to my father have come to the ears of 
some ; neither can I condemn any but you. If it be 
so, you have played the very knave with me ; and 
so I will make you know, if I have good proof of it. 
That for so much as is past. For that is to come, I 
assure you, before God, that if ever I know you do 
so much as read any letter I write to my father 
without his commandment or my consent, I will 
thrust my dagger into you ; and trust to it, for 
I speak in earnest." 

* State Papers, Ireland, Elizabeth ; Sir Henry Sidney to the Queen, 
18 September, 1578 ; the same to Burghley, same date. 



14S Sir Philip Sidney. [1577- 

Molyneux's reply was a model of dignified reproof, 
with a touch of scorn. " Sir," he wrote back on 
the 1st of July, " I have received a letter from you 
which, as it is the first, so it is the sharpest that I 
ever received from any ; and therefore it amazeth 
me to receive such a one from you, since I have (the 
world can judge) deserved better somewhere, how- 
soever it pleased you to condemn me now. But since 
it is (I protest to God) without cause, or yet just 
ground for suspicion, you use me thus, I bear the 
injury more patiently for a time, and mine innocency 
I hope in the end shall try my honesty, and then I 
trust you will confess that you have done me wrong. 
And since your pleasure so is expressed, that I shall 
not henceforth read any of your letters (although I 
must confess I have heretofore taken both great 
delight and profit in reading some of them), yet, upon 
so hard a condition as you seem to offer, I will not 
hereafter adventure so great a peril, but obey you 
herein. Howbeit, if it had pleased you, you might 
have commanded me in a far greater matter with a 
far less penalty. Yours, when it shall please you 
better to conceive of me, humbly to command." 

Let us hope that Philip made prompt and suitable 
apology. He afterwards asked and obtained many 
favours from his father's honest secretary, and, when 
he died, Molyneux was one of the first to applaud j 
in print his virtues.* 

Meanwhile Molyneux came to London in Septem- 
ber to explain Sir Henry's business to the Queen 

* The charming little memoirs of Sir Philip Sidney and of both 
his parents printed in " Holinshed " are attributed to Molyneux. 



1578] Lady Sidney s Difficulties. 149 

and her Council, and to him, from her sick-bed at 
Chiswick, whence she was about to move in order to 
be with her husband at Hampton Court, Lady Sid- 
ney addressed an interesting letter on the nth of 
October. " I have thought good," she wrote, " to 
put you in remembrance to move my Lord Chamber- 
lain, in my lord's name, to have some other room 
than my chamber for my lord to have his resort 
unto, as he was wont to have ; or else my lord will 
be greatly troubled when he shall have any matter 
of dispatch, my lodging, you see, being only little, 
and myself continually sick and not able to be much 
out of my bed. For the night-time, one roof, with 
God's grace, shall serve us. For the day-time, the 
Queen will look to have my chamber always in readi- 
ness for her Majesty's coming thither ; and, though 
my lord himself can be no impediment thereto by 
his own presence, yet his lordship, trusting to no 
place else to be provided for him, will be, as I said 
before, troubled for want of a convenient place to 
the dispatch of such people as shall have occasion 
to come to him. Therefore, I pray you, move my 
Lord of Sussex for a room for that purpose, and I 
will have it hanged and lined for him with stuff from 
home." The Earl of Sussex, formerly Lord Deputy 
of Ireland, was now Lord Chamberlain, and was, it 
will be remembered, Sir Henry's brother-in-law. 

The favour was not a great one to ask, but it was 
not easily, if at all, obtained. A few days later Lady 
Sidney wrote again to Molyneux, saying : " You have 
used the matter very well ; but we must do more yet 
for the good dear lord than let him be thus dealt 



150 Sir Philip Sidney, [1578 

withal. Hampton Court I never yet knew so full as 
there were not spare rooms in it when it hath been 
thrice better filled than at this present it is. But 
some will be sorry, perhaps, my lord should have so 
sure footing in the Court. Well, all may be as well 
when the good God will ; the whilst, I pray, let us 
do what we may for my lord's ease and quiet." She 
suggested various ways in which Molyneux might 
seek the loan, during daytime, of a room in which 
Sir Henry could see his friends on business, without 
bringing them to her bedside or disturbing the 
Queen's talk with her there. " But if all these fail," 
she added, " when the worst is known, old Lord 
Harry and his old Moll will do as well as they can in 
parting, like good friends, the small portion allotted 
our long service in Court." 

"When I came to Court," near the middle of Octo- 
ber, wrote Sir Henry Sidney, " I was entertained, I 
confess, well, but not so well as I thought, and in 
conscience felt, that I deserved." The entertain- 
ment he referred to was in respect of the auditing 
of his accounts and the reception of his reports as 
retiring Lord Deputy of Ireland, not of the sort of 
office or parlour provided for him. But he was only 
at Hampton Court for a week or two before he went 
down to Ludlow Castle to resume his duties as Lord 
President of Wales. There he had something like 
rest. " A happy place of government it is," he said, 
" for a better people to govern, or better subjects to 
their sovereign, Europe holdeth not." 

Being in Wales, he had the less need of Philip's help 
in watching and protecting his interests at Court. 




HI 

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1° 

T K 

(O z 

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o "• 




CHAPTER IX. 

META INCOGNITA. 
I 576-I 578. 

^ERY interesting light is thrown 

t^S on Philip Sidney's character 
% and temperament by his con- 
J\ nections with one of the greatest 
m movements of the Elizabethan 
age, one in which, blundering 
and faulty as it was in some re- 
spects, the chivalry of the age found almost larger 
and more memorable exercise than in any other. 
Accident or necessity rendered his actual share in 
the enterprise by which England was started on her 
career of colonial empire and maritime supremacy 
very much smaller than he desired. He was only 
able to encourage others, and was debarred from 
himself joining any of the expeditions he helped to 
plan. But perhaps his service was none the less im- 
portant on that account. To follow it in order we 
must retrace some of the ground traversed in the last 
few chapters. 

151 



152 Sir Philip Sidney. [1576- 

His zeal was inherited, and it was fostered by 
family associations. Richard Chancellor, the brave 
Englishman who, in May, 1553, eighteen months 
before Philip was born, accompanied Sir Hugh Wil- 
loughby on his famous and disastrous voyage " for 
the search and discovery of northern parts of the 
world, to open a way and passage to our men for 
travel to new and unknown kingdoms/' was one of 
the " servants," as they were called in those days, of 
Sir Henry Sidney ; and Sir Henry was one of the 
chief promoters of that voyage.* Sir Henry's inter- 
est in the seafaring exploits that did so much to 
advance the welfare of England was continued, and 
it was shared by his brothers-in-law, the Earls of 
Warwick and Leicester. Philip, who had Richard 
Hakluyt for one of his Oxford companions, must, 
from his childhood, have heard much of the venture- 
some and patriotic work. Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 
his senior by about fifteen years, was one of Sir 
Henry's principal officers in Ireland, and when 
Gilbert was not fighting in Ireland, he was schem- 
ing methods of reaching Cathay or of founding 
colonies on the way thither. Another schemer to 
these ends, but more anxious to be engaged in trade 
and piracy nearer home, was Martin Frobisher, of 
the same age as Gilbert, who also, in the intervals of 
other occupation, served under Sir Henry in Ireland 



* A remarkable speech by Sir Henry Sidney on the setting out of 
Willoughby's and Chancellor's expedition is quoted from Eden's ' ' Dec- 
ades of the New World" (1555) in my " English Seamen under the 
Tudors," to which I may refer the reader for a fuller account of much 
that is briefly told in this chapter. 



1578] Beginnings of English Colonisation. 153 

or off the Irish coast. Moreover, Frobisher was a 
prime favourite with the Earl of Warwick, and when 
Philip came home in June, 1575, from his foreign 
schooling, he found nearly all the bold navigators of 
the day clustered round his uncle Warwick, busily 
discussing ways and means of fitting out a fresh 
expedition in search of a north-west passage to the 
Indies. 

Queen Elizabeth's sanction of this project had 
been obtained, probably at the Earl of Warwick's 
instigation, in the previous February ; but there was 
considerable difficulty in collecting the necessary 
funds. It was not till the commencement of 1576 
that Michael Lock, who acted as treasurer, and who 
was a son or nephew of Sir William Lock, the great 
merchant, was able to announce a subscription list 
amounting to ,0875. Towards that total Lock con- 
tributed ;£ioo, and other ,£100 apiece came from Sir 
Thomas Gresham and two other London merchants. 
Three of Philip's uncles, the Earls of Warwick, 
Leicester, and Sussex, were each set down for £$0, 
and Lord Burghley was entered for a like amount. 
The rest of the fund was made up of £2^ shares, of 
which one was held by Sir Francis Walsingham and 
another by Philip Sidney. As Philip was at this 
time only one-and-twenty, and the poor son of a 
poor father, forced in the career of courtier on which 
he was embarked to run up heavy bills with the 
tailors and jewellers and bootmakers, his ^25, equal 
to ,£200 or ,£250 at the present time, was a consider- 
able outlay for him, and marked his keen interest 
in the affair. Next year, when Frobisher, having 



154 Sir Philip Sidney. [1576- 



returned from his first voyage, was preparing for a 
second, and most of the speculators doubled their 
subscriptions — Queen Elizabeth risking^oo — Philip 
Sidney also doubled his ; and noteworthy additions 
to the new list were the names of Philip's sister, 
Mistress Mary Sidney, and his friend Edward Dyer, 
each of whom provided £2^* 

The first expedition was ready to start on Thurs- 
day, the 7th of June, 1576, when the Gabriel and 
Michael, two stout little barques of twenty-four tons 
apiece, with a small pinnace of ten tons attached to 
each, and a company of thirty-five officers and men, 
all told, under Frobisher as captain or admiral, 
weighed anchor and set their sails in the Thames, 
off old London Bridge. But at Greenwich the ad- 
venturers were delayed by Queen Elizabeth, who, 
as they passed, sent a messenger in a rowing boat to 
bid them wait till they had taken leave of her, and 
the voyage was only begun on the 12th of June. 
Their exploits need not be here recounted at length. 
Proceeding to the north of Labrador, the two 
barques were parted by a great storm, and those on 
board the Michael, supposing the other to be 
wrecked, deemed it prudent to return to England. 
Frobisher was left to pursue his explorations, with 
only eighteen gentlemen and mariners on board the 
Gabriel and its pinnace. When the latter, with a 
crew of five, sent out to inspect the coast, was lost, 
Frobisher did not venture to go beyond the entrance 
of the straits that bear his name, and to make some 

* State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. cxi., No. 48; vol. 
cxix., No. 34. 



1578] Martin Frobis her 's Expeditions. 155 

general observations of the land which he had dis- 
covered, and to which he gave the title of Meta In- 
cognita. He had done nothing towards finding the 
desired passage to Cathay. But he had added much 
to the map of the Arctic regions, and when he 
reached England in October, to disprove the report 
brought a month before by the crew of the Michael 
as to his shipwreck, he and the twelve gallant men 
whom he brought home, along with an unlucky 
Esquimaux captive, were, according to Michael 
Lock, " joyfully received with great admiration of 
the people, and their strange man and his boat was 
such a wonder to the whole city, and to the rest of 
the realm that heard of it, as seemed never to have 
happened the like great matter to any man's knowl- 
edge.' ' 

Sidney sent to Languet an enthusiastic account 
of Frobisher's achievements. His letter, unfortu- 
nately, is missing ; but its purport, especially as 
regards one incident, may be gathered from another 
letter that he wrote a year later, after Frobisher had 
returned from the second and more important ex- 
pedition on which he started on the 26th of May, 
1577. "It is a marvellous history," Sidney here 
said. " After having made slow progress in the past 
year, Frobisher touched at a certain island in order 
to rest both himself and his crew. And there by 
chance a young man, one of the ship's company, 
picked up a piece of earth which he saw glittering 
on the ground. He showed it to Frobisher, who, 
being busy with other matters, and not believing 
that precious metals were produced in a region so 



156 Sir Philip Sidney. [1576- 

far to the north, considered it of no value. Well, 
they sailed homewards at the beginning of winter ; 
and the young man kept the earth by him as a 
memorial of his labour (for he had no thought of 
anything else) till his return to London. And there, 
when one of his friends saw it shining in an extra- 
ordinary manner, he tested it, and found that it was 
the purest gold, unalloyed with any other metal." 

The analyst was either much mistaken or anxious 
to deceive others. But the lump of supposed gold 
had a wonderful effect in quickening public interest 
in Frobisher's project. A Cathay Company was 
started, with privileges equal to those of the Muscovy 
Company, and Frobisher was appointed its " captain 
general by sea, and admiral of the ships and navy." 
Queen Elizabeth not only became the principal 
shareholder, but she lent a larger vessel, the Aid, 
furnished with sixty-five sailors and twenty-five sol- 
diers, to accompany the little Gabriel and Michael, 
which were equipped anew for further search after 
Cathay. The Aid, however, was only to go to 
Frobisher's Straits and the country thereabout, with 
a view of planting a colony in this region and of soon 
returning to England with a cargo of the gold that 
it was thought would be procured there. 

Sidney was sent abroad on his mission to Germany 
while these preparations were in progress, and the 
expedition had started before his return. In the 
letter already cited he gave Languet some account 
of the work done by the voyagers during a four 
months' absence from England, in the course of 
which, braving the perils of storms and icebergs, 



1578] Sidney and Frobisher, 157 

Frobisher made further additions to geographical 
knowledge about Meta Incognita, and loaded the 
A id with a mineral by no means so valuable as he 
supposed. " He says," wrote Sidney on the 30th of 
September, two days after Frobisher's landing at 
Bristol, " that the island " — now called Hall's Island 
— " is so productive in metals as far to surpass Peru, 
at least as it now is. There are also six other 
islands, near to this, which seem very little inferior. 
It is, therefore, at this time under debate by what 
means these hitherto successful labours can be still 
carried on in safety from the attacks of other nations, 
especially of the Spaniards and Danes ; the former 
as claiming all the western parts by sanction of the 
Pope ; the latter as being more northerly, and there- 
fore nearer and better able, by reason of their pos- 
sessions in Iceland, and of their skill in that sort of 
navigation, to undertake the business. Pray send 
me your opinion on this subject, and at the same 
time describe the most convenient method of work- 
ing these ores ; for we know as little about this art 
as about the cultivation of vines. Remember so to 
write as that you may justify the great reputation in 
which you are held here ; for, unless you forbid it, 
I shall show your letter to the Queen. The thing is 
really important, and it may probably, at some time 
or other, be of use to the professors of true 
religion." 

Sidney's association of Frobisher's discovery, and 
the exaggerated importance attached to it, with the 
Protestant cause was characteristic ; and his fore- 
casting, to some extent, of the enterprise on which 



158 Sir Philip Sidney. [1576- 

the Pilgrim Fathers were to embark more than forty 
years later was curious. He evidently was as ex- 
cited as any one else, too, about the fancied finding 
of another Peru, of which England might take pos- 
session without much fighting, and in which he, as 
one of the first adventurers, would have a substan- 
tial share. 

In his next letter to Languet he had to report 
that, without such guidance in metallurgy as he 
asked his friend to give them, the assayers had 
ascertained that the two hundred tons of stuff 
brought home as gold ore were all dross ; but he 
doubtless thought, as did his partners, that this 
was only an accident and that there was plenty of 
wealth to be drawn from Meta Incognita. The ore 
was declared to be " poor in respect of that brought 
last year, and of that which we know may be 
brought next year," and with this assurance the 
shareholders in the Cathay Company satisfied 
themselves. 

All through the winter they were busy, alike at 
Hampton Court and Whitehall, on the Exchange, in 
Mark Lane, and at the docks, preparing for a much 
larger expedition to be sent out in the spring of 
1578. Sidney and his sister, now the Countess of 
Pembroke, added each of them about a third to 
their earlier investments, raising the former's to £67 
10s., and the latter's to £33 i$s. * A fleet of fifteen 
ships was fitted out, and suitable preparations were 
made with the intention not only of bringing home 
at least two thousand tons of ore, — Lord Burghley's 

* State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. cxxvi., No. 32. 



1578] Frobisher s Gold. 



*59 



proposal was for five thousand, — but also of settling 
a hundred colonists in Meta Incognita. 

Languet wrote very wisely, but, as it happened, 
superfluously, in reply to Sidney's letter of the 30th 
of September, 1577: " If what you say about Fro- 
bisher be true, you have stumbled on that gift of 
nature which is of all the most fatal and baneful to 
mankind, yet which most men so madly covet, as 
it, more than anything else in the world, stirs them 
to incur every kind of risk. I fear that England, 
crazed by the love of gold, will now just empty her- 
self into these islands that Frobisher has been finding. 
And how much English blood, do you suppose, 
must be shed for you to keep hold of them ? In 
old times, when some Carthaginians, on a voyage in 
the Atlantic, had been carried by a storm to land of 
some sort, and had come back with wonderful reports 
of its wealth, the Senate, fearing the people would 
be tempted to go thither, put to death the men who 
had brought the report, so that if any wished to 
emigrate they should have none who could guide 
them. Do I, therefore, think that you should reject 
these treasures that God has thrown in your way? 
Anything but that. Nay ; I thoroughly admire the 
high spirit, the perseverance, and even the good 
fortune, of Frobisher. He deserves great rewards. 
But I am thinking of you, for you seem to rejoice 
in the circumstance as if it was the best thing possible 
for your country, especially as I noticed in you last 
spring a certain longing to undertake this kind of 
enterprise ; and, if Frobisher's foolish hope of finding 
a North-West Passage had power then to fascinate 



160 Sir Philip Sidney. L1576- 

you, what will not these golden mountains do, or 
rather these islands all of gold, as I daresay they 
shape themselves day and night in your mind ? 
Beware, I do beseech you, and never let ' the cursed 
hunger after gold,' whereof the poet speaks, creep 
over that spirit of yours, into which nothing has 
hitherto been admitted save the love of goodness 
and the desire of earning the good-will of all men. 
If these golden islands are fixing themselves too 
firmly in your thoughts, turn them out before they 
possess you, and keep yourself safe till you can 
serve your friends and your country in a better 
way." 

Sidney may have thought now and then of going 
out with Frobisher in the summer of 1578, as Lan- 
guet shows us he had been inclined to do a year 
before ; but, if so, Court ties and family duties 
deterred him. He merely looked on and helped to 
superintend the preparations. He was with the 
Queen at Greenwich, having returned from Wan- 
stead, where his " Lady of May " had lately been 
performed, on the 28th of May, when Frobisher and 
his fourteen captains kissed her Majesty's hands at 
parting, and had, according to the record, " good 
gifts and greater promises " bestowed upon them. 
He was with the Queen, too, in October, when Fro- 
bisher's ships came straggling back, having had many 
narrow escapes and passed through great difficulties, 
and when the admiral had to report that, though he 
had tracked out much coast hitherto unvisited, on 
both sides of the channel now known as Hudson's 
Straits, he had seen no place fit for winter habitation, 



1578] 



Frobisher s Failure. 161 



and had left part of his stores behind him, intending 
to recover them next year. That Frobisher never 
did ; and the stores were not heard of again until, 
after a lapse of nearly three centuries, Captain C. F. 
Hall, the enterprising United States explorer, found 
traces of them in 1861 and 1862.* 

Though Frobisher and his comrades were heartily 
welcomed home, there was grievous disappointment 
when the great quantities of mineral they brought 
back were discovered to be as worthless as their for- 
mer cargo. Desperate quarrels arose, and mainly on 
this account, between Frobisher, who claimed the 
salary due to him, and Michael Lock who, as treas- 
urer of the Cathay Company, defied even the orders 
of the Privy Council on the subject. Frobisher 
publicly complained that Lock was " a false account- 
ant to the Company, a cozener to my lord of Oxford, 
no venturer at all in the voyages, a bankrupt knave " ; 
and, as Lock urged in a letter to Sir Francis Wal- 
singham, he "entered into great storms and rages with 
him like a mad beast, and raised on him such shame- 
ful reports and false slanders as the whole Court and 
City were full of." 

There was some excuse for poor Frobisher's storms 
and rages, and Sidney continued his friend, probably 
helping him and his family in the poverty to which 
they were reduced ; but so many other friends 
dropped off that he had no chance of undertaking 
the fourth voyage he proposed. His Meta Incognita 
was abandoned until Henry Hudson and others 

* Hall, " Life with the Esquimaux " (1864), vol. i., pp. 271, 278, 
302, 315 ; vol. ii., pp. 77, 150, 283, 293, etc. 
11 



1 62 Sir Philip Sidney. [1576- 

made further and more extensive explorations in 
this barren and ice-bound region. Neither England 
nor Philip Sidney was corrupted by the gold it had 
been supposed to contain. 

A greater man than Frobisher had set forth on a 
more famous and eventful expedition on the 15th of 
November, 1577. This was Francis Drake, who then 
started in the Golden Hind on the voyage which 
occupied him nearly three years in going round the 
world. Drake had done much memorable work 
before that, both in raids on the Spaniards in the 
West Indies, and in land service under the Earl of 
Essex in Ireland. In the latter relation, if in no 
other, Sidney must have seen something of him. It 
does not appear that Sidney was much concerned in 
the project of 1577 ; but at a later date we shall find 
him closely and curiously associated with Drake, and 
even now he evidently had some inclination to 
emulate if not to share Drake's bold enterprise. 
Writing to Languet in a gloomy strain about the 
condition of Protestantism in Europe and the failure 
of his hopes for a Protestant league, he said on the 
1st of March, 1578, " Unless God powerfully counter- 
act it, I think I see our cause withering away, and I 
am even now meditating some Indian project." The 
Indian project was doubtless akin to Drake's plan for 
attacking Spain and Catholicism by methods that 
would nowadays be called piracy. 

The overthrow — or, at any rate, the weakening and 
worrying — of Catholic and Spanish tyranny was at 
this time, and till the end of his life, the political 
object that, above all others, Sidney set before him- 



1578] Sidney s " Indian Project" 163 

self. He could not break away from the Court 
thraldom which was imposed upon him and which, 
though he often complained of it, was on the whole 
more pleasant than unpleasant to him, and there was 
much connected therewith, and with the intellectual 
and literary movements incident to it, that afforded 
him more than pastime ; but he was always yearning 
for occupation in the field of politics, and in that field 
he always had the same end in view, however diverse 
might be his plans for reaching it. In so far as he 
ever thought seriously of accompanying Frobisher in 
his voyages of discovery in northern latitudes, or of 
rivalling Drake's achievements in warmer seas, he 
was prompted by more than sympathy with such 
adventurous work, keen as that was. His main desire 
was to assist in damaging Spain and crippling the 
Papacy, both being enterprises deemed by him 
necessary for the credit, if not for the safety, of 
England, and yet more for the protection of the 
Protestant cause in Germany and the Netherlands. 
It was because, in the spring of 1578, this cause 
appeared to him to be " withering away " that he 
then, in desperation, meditated " some Indian pro- 
ject " ; and in the same mood he was oftener, 
almost constantly, meditating projects nearer home. 
His friend, Count John Casimir,* brother of the 
Elector Palatine, was in the autumn of 1577 ap- 
pointed a sort of agent by Queen Elizabeth to 
watch on her behalf the progress of affairs in Ger- 
many and the Netherlands, and in the following 

* John Casimir, like others in his day, was variously styled count, 
and duke, and prince. 



164 Sir Philip Sidney. [1576- 

summer Elizabeth lent him some money to be spent 
in raising a small army with which to go to the 
assistance of William of Orange, who was now at open 
war with Don John of Austria, King Philip's vice- 
roy. This step was taken in consequence of advice 
from Leicester, Walsingham, and others, Sidney 
being one of the most zealous, if not one of the 
most influential, among them. Sidney not only 
urged John Casimir's employment in this way, but 
was anxious to take part in the expedition. His 
father's business, if nothing else, prevented him. 
" By your letters,'' Sir Henry wrote from Dublin on 
the 1st of August, when he was on the point of re- 
turning to England to surrender his Lord Deputy- 
ship, " you have discovered unto me your intention 
to go over into the Low Countries to accompany 
Duke Casimir. This disposition of your virtuous 
mind I must needs much commend in you. But 
when I enter into consideration of mine own estate, 
and call to mind what practices, informations, and 
wicked accusations are devised against me, and what 
an assistance in the defence of those causes your 
presence would be unto me, reposing myself so 
much both upon your help and judgment, I strive 
betwixt honour and necessity what allowance I may 
best give that motion for your going. Howbeit, if 
you think not my matters of that weight and diffi- 
culty, as I hope they be not, but they may well 
enough by myself, without your assistance or any 
other, be brought to an honourable end, I will not 
be against your determination ; yet would wish you, 
before your departure, that you come to me at the 



1578] Sidney s Low- Countries Project 165 

water's side, about the latter end of this month, to 
take your leave of me, and so from thence depart 
towards your intended journey." 

The conflict of feelings shown in this letter, and 
the fact that Sir Henry Sidney had to excuse him- 
self for not writing it with his own hand, " which I 
would have done if the indisposition of my body had 
not been such as I could not," induced Philip to 
abandon his project of joining John Casimir in the 
Low Countries. And it was well he did ; for nothing 
but mischief resulted from the proceedings of John 
Casimir, who was by no means so capable a man as 
his friends supposed. Even Languet rejoiced in 
Philip's absence. " If you had come into Belgium," 
he wrote, " I should immediately have hurried to 
meet you. It would have been extremely delight- 
ful to me to see you again ; but I should not have 
been altogether pleased at your coming amongst 
men whose society you could not have enjoyed. It 
would have been cheerless work for you, living in a 
camp where you would have seen no examples of 
valour, no tokens of good soldiership — only troops 
disobeying their leaders, and acting with insolence 
and cowardice." 

Languet made some notable remarks in this letter. 
" If your Queen had been bound by treaty to send 
troops to the Low Countries, and had ordered you 
to go with them there, it would have been your duty 
to regard the enemies of the Netherlanders as your 
own foes. But from a mere desire for praise and glory, 
and that you might give public proof of your cour- 
age, you determined to treat as your personal ene- 



1 66 Sir Philip Sidney. L1676- 

mies those who seem to you to be taking the wrong 
side in the war. It is not your business, it is not for 
any private person, to pass judgment on a question 
of this kind. It belongs to the magistrate (by magis- 
trate I mean the prince), who should decide with the 
help of counsellors he believes to be wise and just. 
Young gentlemen like you are apt to consider that 
nothing brings them more honour than wholesale 
slaughter. That is quite wrong; for if you kill a 
man against whom you have no lawful cause of war, 
you kill one who, so far as you are concerned, is in- 
nocent." " Great praise is due," Languet continued, 
after more discourse on this subject, " to those 
who bravely defend their country ; but they are 
to be praised, not for the number of men they 
kill, but for the protection they give to their own 
land. Those are the wars in which true glory is 
won ; but in our times they are most admired whose 
mad ambition causes most bloodshed." Here Lan- 
guet was evidently thinking of Don John of Austria 
and others, whom even foes applauded for their wild 
love of fighting. His reproof was reproof of all the 
volunteer warfare in which men like Gilbert and 
Raleigh often engaged. 

Yet other sentences must be quoted from this ex- 
cellent sermon in letter form. " I am much grieved," 
Languet wrote, " to hear you say that you are weary 
of the life to which, I doubt not, God has called 
you, and that you wish to flee from the glitter of 
your Court and betake yourself to some secluded 
place, where you may avoid the troubles that ham- 
per and engross all who live within the circle of 



1578] Hubert Langueis Warnings. 167 

government. I know that in the splendour of a 
Court there are so many temptations to vice that 
it is very hard for a man to hold himself clean 
among them, and to stand upright on such slippery 
ground. But you must struggle boldly and virtu- 
ously against these difficulties, remembering that the 
glory of victory is always great in proportion to the 
peril undergone. Nature has endowed you with 
good gifts of mind and body. Fortune has favoured 
you with noble birth and many splendid accomplish- 
ments. From your boyhood you have made study 
of all the most useful arts. Will you then, furnished 
with such weapons, refuse to your country the 
service it demands, and bury in the earth the large 
talent that God has entrusted to you ? " 

True and wise words of counsel for the mentor of 
sixty to address to the young man who had just 
entered on his twenty-fourth year. 





CHAPTER X. 

IN COURT LIVERY. 
I 578-1 580. 




N the summer of 1578 Philip 
Sidney was appointed to some 
office under Queen Elizabeth. 
As there is no record on the 
subject, the office was proba- 
bly of a trivial sort, one of the 
several small sinecures or mere- 
ly ceremonial posts, such as that of cupbearer, or 
gentleman-in-waiting, which were bestowed upon 
him in common with other courtiers whose attend- 
ance her Majesty was anxious to. ensure by putting 
them in dignified livery. Whatever it was, Hubert 
Languet overrated its importance. " Before," he 
wrote on the 1.6th of July, " I was fearful lest the 
ardour of youth should suggest some rash project, 
and fate snatch you from your country and your 
friends to bring you to an inglorious end ; for I heard 
talk about distant voyages and Belgian soldiering. 
But now that you are no longer your own master, 

168 



1578] In the Queens Service. 169 

and that your new honours have so tied you to your 
country that you must consult its advantage rather 
than your own pleasure, my anxiety is lessened. 
Not that I think you less liable to danger than you 
were before, but that the perils you have to undergo 
for your country must now bring you fame and 
praise. I congratulate you, therefore, upon the 
favour with which your wise soverign has honoured 
you, only to incite you to further pursuit of virtue." 

Though the new duties assigned to Sidney, what- 
ever their nature, cannot have been either as onerous 
or as perilous as Languet imagined, they probably 
marked a rise in the courtier's position. Sidney still 
often thought of breaking away from the thraldom 
imposed upon him, but during the next year or 
more he appears to have been in closer attendance 
on the Queen than heretofore, and, in spite of his 
complaints and ambitions, perhaps the thraldom was 
pleasant. 

Languet, with amusing persistency, urged other 
thraldom upon him. " If you marry a wife, and be- 
get children like yourself," he urged, "you will be a 
better servant of your country than if you were to 
cut the throats of a thousand Spaniards or French- 
men " ; and he added, " I am not in this recommend- 
ing to you idleness or ease — at least if we are to 
believe the poet who advises any man that wishes 
plenty of trouble to get him a wife." 

" I wonder, my dear Hubert," Sidney wrote in 
answer, not to the letter just quoted from, but to an 
earlier one containing similar remarks, " what has 
come into your mind that, when I have not as yet 



170 Sir Philip Sidney. [1578- 

done anything to deserve it, you would have me 
bound in the chains of matrimony ; and this without 
pointing out any particular lady, but as though you 
extolled the marriage state in itself — which, by the 
bye, you have not as yet sanctioned by your own 
example. Respecting one, of whom I readily ac- 
knowledge how unworthy I am, I have written you 
my reasons long ago — briefly, indeed, but still as 
well as I could. At present, however, I believe you 
are entertaining some other notion. If so, I beg you 
to acquaint me with it, whatever it may be." 

It is a pity that we have neither the letter in which 
Sidney declared his unworthiness of some particular 
lady, and apparently his liking for her, nor any other 
letters that might clear up the mysteries here indi- 
cated. Allusions in Languet's correspondence ren- 
der it not impossible that he had a German spouse 
in view for Sidney ; perhaps a wealthy widow, or a 
daughter of one of the Protestant princes whose 
cause both the friends were anxious to advance. It 
is tolerably clear that Sidney liked his liberty too 
well to be in any haste about surrendering it, yet had 
a mild preference for some one ; and this some one 
we may reasonably assume to have been Lady Pe- 
nelope Devereux, the daughter of his friend, the Earl 
of Essex, who on his deathbed in the autumn of 
1576, and before, had earnestly desired that there 
should be a match between them. 

In the summer of 1578 Penelope was in her six- 
teenth year, Philip in his twenty-fourth. Penelope 
was apparently living with her mother, who was 
often at Court, and whose marriage to Philip's uncle, 



1580] Not Ready to Marry. 171 

the Earl of Leicester, was not at present known. It 
is difficult to imagine any serious obstacle to their 
union, save such as may have come from the inclina- 
tions of one or both ; nor is it easy to suppose that 
Penelope would have offered much resistance to 
Philip's wooing, had he cared to woo in earnest. 
Only one thing, however, is clear ; that at this time 
Philip felt none of the passion for Penelope which, 
as Astrophel, he two or three years afterwards, in his 
famous sonnets, professed for her as Stella. As to 
the autobiographical value of these poems something 
must be said hereafter. He certainly had not begun 
to write them, or to entertain the thoughts uttered 
in them, in 1578. 

About his occupations this year all of importance 
that is known has already been recorded. He kept 
Christmas, along with his parents, at Hampton 
Court. Sir Henry Sidney, having been partly for- 
given for his excess of zeal in the Queen's service as 
Lord Deputy of Ireland, absented himself for a while 
from his post as Lord President of Wales, and came 
up to enjoy a holiday with his family as well as to 
pay respects to his sovereign. To Queen Elizabeth, 
on the first day of 1579, ne presented a costly gold 
ornament, on which was carved an image of Diana, 
richly garnished with diamonds, pearls, and rubies. 
Her Majesty's gratitude was marked by a gift of ? 
hundred and thirty-eight ounces of gold plate. To 
Lady Sidney and to Philip, severally, the royal 
favour was measured by thirty and by twenty ounces, 
in exchange for a smock and two cambric pillow- 
cases tendered by the mother, and a white sarcenet 



172 Sir Philip Sidney. [1578- 

bodice, quilted and embroidered with gold, silver, 
and silk of divers colours, and with lace of gold and 
silver round about, which constituted the New 
Year's gift of the son. 

The Christmas festivities were quickly followed 
by others of special interest to Philip. Prince John 
Casimir, who had in the previous August gone with 
twelve thousand soldiers to assist Prince William of 
Orange, but had caused only trouble thereby, and 
who had been roundly scolded by Queen Elizabeth 
for his folly and recklessness, came to England to 
make his peace with her Majesty. With him came 
Languet, chiefly, it would seem, for the sake of 
meeting Philip. The poor old man was afraid he 
should be deprived of this pleasure. Early in De- 
cember he had been seized with fever and an affec- 
tion of the eyes which prevented him from reading 
or doing any kind of work. " But I shall come if I 
possibly can," he wrote, " even if it should be at the 
peril of my life." Fortunately his wish was grati- 
fied, and without harm to him. 

Sir Henry Sidney was sent as far as Canterbury to 
meet the visitors and to escort them to the Tower of 
London, which they reached on Thursday, the 22d 
of January. They were there received by a number 
of noblemen and gentlemen, of whom Philip Sidney 
was one; and they were led by torchlight to Sir 
Thomas Gresham's house in Bishopsgate Street, 
where a band of drums and fifes and other musical 
instruments sounded for them a hearty welcome. By 
the great merchant they were lodged and feasted 



1580] John Casimir in England. 173 

during two days, and on Sunday, the 25th, they 
took boat to Whitehall and waited on the Queen. 

As John Casimir entered the palace, her Majesty 
came out and essayed to kiss him ; but he, we are 
told, not being trained to the English custom, hum- 
bly yet resolutely refused. Nor was this his only 
resistance to Elizabeth's friendly conduct. She led 
him with her own hand through the great hall into 
the presence-chamber, and, as the passages were 
draughty, she bade him wear his hat. This he 
would not do, saying he was her Majesty's servant to 
command. " Then," replied the Queen, " if you are 
my servant, I command you to put on your hat." 
The prince's defiance of that order, instead of offend- 
ing her Majesty, may have made it easier for him to 
obtain forgiveness for his mismanagement of the 
business in which he had acted partly on her behalf. 

During the eighteen days that followed John Casi- 
mir was lodged in Somerset House, where the Queen 
provided food for him, but he was often feasted 
elsewhere. On one day he dined in the City with 
the Lord Mayor and Corporation. On another he 
visited one of Philip's aunts, the Countess of Sus- 
sex, at the Barbican, in Red-Cross Street. On an- 
other he was entertained at Wanstead by the Earl 
of Leicester. Some days he spent in hunting at 
Hampton Court, and he shot one stag in Hyde Park. 
In all the compliments and amusements contrived 
for him, with sober Languet looking on, we may 
imagine the large but unrecorded share taken by 
Sidney, who, though his name is not mentioned 



174 Sir Philip Sidney, [1578- 

in connection with any particular proceeding, was 
foremost among the courtiers in their hospitable 
behaviour. 

" I was glad," Languet wrote to Sidney after he 
had gone back to the Netherlands, " to see you in 
high favour with your Queen, and so well thought 
of by your countrymen. But, to tell the truth, the 
ways of your Court seemed to me less manly than I 
could have wished. Most of the courtiers sought to 
win applause rather by an affected courtesy than by 
those virtues which are healthful to the State, and 
which are the chief ornaments of generous minds — 
of high-born men. I was much grieved, and so were 
your other friends with me, because you seemed to 
be wasting the flower of your youth upon such 
things. I fear lest your nature should be warped, 
lest by habit you should be brought to find satisfac- 
tion in pursuits that only weaken the mind." In 
speaking thus Languet merely gave utterance to 
thoughts that were often in Sidney's mind, and not 
seldom expressed by himself in words. 

On Thursday, the 12th of February, John Casimir 
took leave of the Queen, who made him a parting 
present of two gold cups, valued at ,£300 apiece. 
"There hath been somewhat to do," wrote Gilbert 
Talbot to his father, the Earl of Shrewsbury, " to 
bring her unto it, and Mr. Secretary Walsingham 
bore the brunt of it." Besides this, however, the 
prince had need of gold that he could more easily 
part with. He borrowed a sum of money from 
Sidney which six weeks afterwards Languet had 
considerable difficulty in getting him to pay back. 



1580] " So Well Thought of" 175 

Sir Henry Sidney accompanied the visitors on 
their way home as far as the Kentish coast, taking 
with him his younger son Robert, who was entrusted 
to Languet's care, and who now started, as Philip had 
done before him, on two or three years of travel and 
residence abroad. A strong friendship had grown 
up between Sir Henry and Languet. The sturdy 
Huguenot also became warmly attached to the 
Countess of Pembroke and others of the Sidney kin- 
dred, as well as to Philip's two dearest friends, Fulke 
Greville and Edward Dyer. The former crossed the 
Channel with him, being sent on a mission to some 
of the German princes. Of the latter he said, " His 
friendship is like a gem added to my treasures." 

On his way home, two or three months later, 
Greville paid a visit to William of Orange, who was 
then at Delft, and to him William gave a message 
for Queen Elizabeth. Greville was to say, on 
William's behalf, that, in his opinion, " her Majesty 
had in Mr. Philip Sidney one of the ripest and 
greatest counsellors of State that lived in Europe," 
and that, if her Majesty would but make trial of the 
young man, the Prince staked his own credit on the 
issue of any business he might be employed upon, 
either with the friends or with the foes of England. 
This message seems never to have been delivered. 
When Sidney heard of it, he bade Greville keep 
silence on the subject. If her Majesty did not 
choose, of her own accord, to trust and advance 
him, he said with proper dignity, she had better not 
do it at all, seeing the commendation of another 
could add nothing to his deserts. 



176 Sir Philip Sidney. [1578- 

From a letter that Sir Henry wrote to his younger 
son, Robert, shortly before the lad started on his 
travels, we may learn something of Philip's de- 
meanour among his associates at Queen Elizabeth's 
Court, as well as among the foreigners he had made 
acquaintance with. " One thing I warn you of," 
said Sir Henry, " arrogate no precedency, neither of 
your countrymen nor of strangers ; but take your 
place, promiscuously with others, according to your 
degree and birth-right, with aliens. Follow your 
discreet and virtuous brother's rule, who, with great 
discretion, to his commendation, won love, and 
could variously ply ceremony with ceremony." In 
a later letter Sir Henry, after giving Robert some 
advice about travel, added : " But why do I blunder 
at these things ? Follow the discretion of your 
loving brother, who in loving you is comparable 
with me and exceedeth me. Imitate his virtues, 
exercises, studies, and actions. He is a rare orna- 
ment of this age, the very formula that all well- 
disposed young gentlemen of our Court do form 
also their manners and life by. In truth — I speak 
it without flattery of him or of myself — he hath 
the most rare virtues that ever I found in any 
man.' 

From Philip himself we have two long and very 
interesting letters written to Robert while he was 
abroad. One gives excellent advice as to the way in 
which he may profit by his experience of the places, 
people, and institutions he will meet with on his 
travels. The other treats chiefly of his studies, and 
especially of the proper way of reading history, 



1580] " A Rare Ornament of his Age." 177 

which appears to have been Robert's favourite occu- 
pation when he turned to his books.* 

Of Philip's own movements — apart from his lit- 
erary exercises which will be referred to hereafter 
— we have no trace for several months after Robert 
had started for Germany. We may take it for granted 
that he was much occupied during the summer of 
1579 in superintending, as his father's agent, and 
himself suggesting and elaborating in many particu- 
lars, the enlargement of Penshurst Place which Sir 
Henry Sidney this year began, giving a new front to 
the building, and making of it the beautiful mansion 
that stands to the present day. He was generally 
in attendance on the Queen ; but as the year ad- 
vanced his position at Court became more and more 
irksome to him, and early in 1580 his self-respect, if 
not the Queen's anger, forced him to retire from it 
for a while. 

In the autumn of 1578 the Duke of Alencon — 
who had in 1576 succeeded to the title of Duke of 
Anjou, or Monsieur, his elder brother Henry having 
become King of France — began to be again talked of 
as a possible husband for Queen Elizabeth. The 
earlier project had been spoilt by the St. Bartholo- 
mew massacre, and since 1572 this contemptible 
member of the contemptible house of Valois had 
done nothing to deserve favour. But he had daz- 
zled some people's eyes by his exploits in the Neth- 
erlands, where he offered himself as a rival to the 
Prince of Orange in opposition to Spanish tyranny, 

* Both these letters have been so often printed that it is unneces- 
sary to say much about them here. 
12 



178 Sir Philip Sidney. [1578- 

and there was in England a faction that urged the 
political expediency of a match which might induce 
Elizabeth to place herself at the head of the Prot- 
estant movement in Europe. That she should take 
such a position had long been desired by Sidney; 
but he was shrewd enough to see that a marriage 
between the Queen and this ugly, treacherous ad- 
venturer, nearly twenty years younger than she was, 
would in no way promote the wished-for object, and 
could lead to nothing but mischief. He and Fulke 
Greville, and all the young patriots who shared their 
view, stoutly opposed the project, and the leader of 
the party at Court which condemned it was the 
Earl of Leicester, at any rate till August, 1579. 

In that month Du Simier, the agent of the Duke of 
Anjou, who for more than six months had been busily 
pressing his master's suit with the Queen, discovered 
that Leicester had a year before been married to 
the Countess of Essex. He lost no time in pub- 
lishing the secret, and great was Elizabeth's wrath 
when it reached her ears. Leicester was banished 
from her presence. According to one authority, he 
was sent to a fort in Greenwich Park, with orders 
not to stir thence until leave was given him, and 
with a threat that, if he disobeyed, he would be 
committed to the Tower; according to another, 
which is more credible, he voluntarily shut himself 
up in one of his country houses, on pretence of be- 
ing seriously ill. Sidney was not dismissed from 
Court, but he was regarded with much less favour 
than heretofore, and those who were not his friends 
had license to insult him. 



1580] Losing Favour at Court. 1 79 

Foremost among his rivals was the Earl of Ox- 
ford, the brutal husband of the Anne Cecil to whom 
ten years earlier it had been proposed to marry 
Sidney, and, as Oxford was prominent among the 
Duke of Anjou's partisans, his arrogance knew no 
bounds. 

While Sidney, one day near the end of September, 
was playing tennis at Whitehall, Oxford entered 
the court uninvited, and haughtily proposed to join 
in the game. Sidney at first took no notice of the 
intrusion. When he did speak he used such digni- 
fied words of reproof — " coming," as Fulke Greville 
tells us, " from an understanding heart that knew 
what was due to itself and what it owed to others " 
— that Oxford fell into a violent rage and, after 
further talk, insolently ordered the whole party to 
leave the court. Thereto Sidney " temperately 
answered " that, if his lordship had been pleased to 
express his wish in courteous terms, he would have 
been met with courtesy, and " perchance might have 
led out those that he should now find would not be 
driven out with any scourge of fury." " Puppy ! " 
exclaimed my lord, so loudly and angrily that the 
courtiers who were in the gallery overlooking the 
tennis-court hurried down to watch the dispute. 
Among them came Du Simier and the other French- 
men, before whom Oxford was especially anxious to 
make a fine show. " They instantly drew all to this 
tumult," Greville reports ; " every sort of quarrel sort- 
ing well with their humours, especially this." Sidney 
thereupon, " rising with an inward strength by the 
prospect of a mighty faction against him," asked my 



180 Sir Philip Sidney. [1578- 

lord with a loud voice what it was that he had 
called him. " A puppy ! " repeated Oxford. " That, 
said Sidney, " is a lie ! " and then, after waiting long 
enough for the retort that he expected, he walked 
out of the court, saying as he went that this was a 
business which could be better settled in a more 
private place. Oxford did not follow him. To the 
astonishment of all, and with no advantage to his 
reputation, he blustered out something about having 
gained his point by being rid of the fellow, and 
after that proceeded to his game of tennis. 

Through a whole day Sidney looked for the mes- 
sage that the code of honour held binding in those 
times prescribed. None arriving, he sent a friend 
to ask whether he should hear from the Earl of Ox- 
ford, and to say that this was a state of affairs in 
which his lordship's French companions could teach 
him, if he did not know, what course he ought to take. 
Thus provoked, Oxford sent back an acceptance of 
the challenge. But the time for fighting was over. 
The matter had in the interval been brought before 
the lords of the Privy Council, and they, not con- 
tent with enjoining peace between the young men, 
besought the Queen herself to effect a conciliation. 

Her Majesty accordingly sent for Sidney, and 
pointing out the difference between peers and com- 
moners, and the respect that inferiors owed to their 
superiors, bade him apologise. This Sidney refused 
to do. No peer, he said, had by his rank any privi- 
lege to do wrong, and, though the Earl of Oxford 
might be a great lord by virtue of his birth and the 
Queen's favours, he was no lord over him. Her 



1580] His Quarrel with the Earl of Oxford. 1 8 1 

Majesty's father, King Henry the Eighth, he re- 
minded her, had recognised and established the 
right of the gentry in England to resist the over- 
bearing spirit of the grandees. 

There was no duel. The Earl of Oxford took 
shelter in the Queen's favour, and in her order that 
he was not to fight. Some time afterwards he sent 
a messenger, said to have been Walter Raleigh, to 
propose to Sidney that their disagreement should 
cease ; and Sidney appears to have expressed him- 
self satisfied. At any rate, we hear no more of the 
quarrel. Two years later several of Sidney's friends 
alleged that Oxford had plotted his murder, intend- 
ing to steal into his bedchamber and stab him ; but 
the story needs confirmation, and, if there was any 
truth at all in it, it may be assumed that no murder 
was actually attempted. 

How Sidney regarded the quarrel while it was 
hottest may be seen from a letter he wrote to Sir 
Christopher Hatton on the 28th of September, 1579. 
" As for the matter depending between the Earl of 
Oxford and me," he said, " certainly, sir, howsoever 
I might have forgiven him, I should never have 
forgiven myself, if I had lain under so proud an 
injury as he would have laid upon me. Neither can 
anything under the sun make me repent it, nor any 
misery make me go one half word back from it. 
Let him therefore, if he will, digest it. For my 
part, I think tying up makes some things seem 
fiercer than they would be." 

Even the devout Languet considered that Sidney 
was right in challenging his insulter to a duel. " I 



1 82 Sir Philip Sidney. [1578- 

am aware/' he wrote, " that by a habit inveterate in 
all Christendom a gentleman is disgraced if he does 
not resent such an insult. I think you were unfortu- 
nate to be drawn into this contention ; but I see that 
no blame can be attached to you for your share in it." 

Sidney's conduct was considered at Court to be 
not so much a bearding of the Earl of Oxford as a 
defiance of the whole French faction to which Oxford 
belonged. In that light he himself regarded it ; and 
from this time we find him taking bolder ground than 
heretofore with reference to the Queen's projected 
marriage. 

He stayed on at Court till the commencement of 
1580, and on New Year's Day he, as usual, made a 
present to her Majesty. But early in January he 
addressed to her a very bold and memorable letter. 

In this letter he freely stated the objections he had 
all along felt to the proposed union with the Duke 
of Anjou. It was really a treatise, skilfully worded, 
and dealing in a masterly way with some of the chief 
aspects of the political situation then troubling all 
English Protestants. 

It was the Protestants, Sidney urged, who were the 
stoutest, if not the only, supporters of the Queen's 
government. " How their hearts will be galled, if 
not aliened, when they shall see you take for a hus- 
band a Frenchman and a Papist, in whom (howsoever 
fine wits may find farther dealings or painted excuses) 
the very common people well know this, that he is 
the son of a Jezebel of our age — that his brother 
made oblation of his sister's marriage, the easier to 
make massacres of our brethren in belief — that he 



1580] A Bold Letter to the Queen. 183 

himself, contrary to his promise and to all grateful- 
ness, having his liberty and principal estate by the 
Huguenots' means, did sack La Charite, and utterly 
spoil them with fire and sword ! " The utter worth- 
lessness and viciousness of the Duke of Anjou, Sid- 
ney plainly warned the Queen, " give occasion to all 
truly religious to abhor such a master and conse- 
quently to diminish much of the hopeful love they 
have long held to you." On the other hand, the 
Catholics, being always and perforce disaffected, 
having already and repeatedly plotted rebellions and 
devised treacheries, " at this present want nothing 
so much as a head, who in effect needs not to receive 
their instructions, since they may do mischief only 
with his countenance." 

" Often have I heard you," Sidney wrote in an- 
other and especially interesting paragraph, " with 
protestation, say no private pleasure nor self-affection 
could lead you to it" — that is, to a married life. "If 
it be both unprofitable to your kingdom and un- 
pleasant to you, it were a dear purchase of repent- 
ance. Nothing can it add unto you but the bliss of 
children, which I confess were a most unspeakable 
comfort, but yet no more appertaining to him than 
to any other to whom the height of all good haps 
were allotted, to be your husband. And therefore I 
may assuredly affirm that what good so ever can 
follow marriage is no more his than anybody's ; but 
the evils and dangers are peculiarly annexed to his 
person and condition." 

Sidney offered much more in the way of argu- 
ment, entreaty, and expostulation ; and in some of 



184 Sir Philip Sidney. [1578- 

his sentences he showed himself a courtier as well as 
a patriot. After speaking of the scandalous stories 
that were sometimes floated concerning the Queen, 
he said : " I durst with my blood answer it that there 
was never monarch held in more precious reckoning 
of her people ; and, before God, how can it be other- 
wise ? For mine own part, when I hear some lost 
wretch hath defiled such a name with his mouth, I 
consider the right name of blasphemy, whose un- 
bridled soul doth delight to deprave that which is 
accounted generally most high and holy. No, no, 
most excellent lady, do not raze out the impression 
you have made in such a multitude of hearts, and let 
not the scum of such vile minds bear any witness 
against your subjects' devotions ; which, to proceed 
one point further, if it were otherwise, could little be 
helped, but rather nourished and in effect begun, by 
this marriage." 

" Since, then," the brave courtier wrote in conclu- 
sion — " since, then, it is dangerous for your State — 
since to your person it can be no way comfortable, 
you not desiring marriage, and neither to person nor 
State he is to bring any more good than anybody 
(but more evil he may) — since the causes that should 
drive you to this are fears of either that which can- 
not happen or by this means cannot be prevented — 
I do with most humble heart say unto your Majesty 
that, as for your standing alone, you must take it for 
a singular honour God hath done you, to be indeed 
the only protector of His Church. As for this man, 
as long as he is but Monsieur in might and a Papist 
in profession, he neither can nor will greatly shield 



1580] A Bold Letter to the Queen. 185 

you ; and, if he get once to be king, his defence will 
be like Ajax's shield, which rather weighed down 
than defended those that bare it. Against contempt, 
if there be any, which I will never believe, let your 
excellent virtues of piety, justice, and liberality daily 
— if it be possible — more and more shine. Let such 
particular actions be found out, which be easy as I 
think to be done, by which you may gratify all the 
hearts of your people. Let those in whom you find 
trust, and to whom you have committed trust in 
your weighty affairs, be held up in the eyes of your 
subjects. Lastly, doing as you do, you shall be as 
you be, the example of princes, the ornament of this 
age, the most excellent fruit of your progenitors, and 
the perfect mirror of your posterity." 

The good sense of this long epistle did not per- 
suade the Queen, nor did the compliments with 
which it ended conciliate her. For at least two 
years longer she regarded the Duke of Anjou as her 
suitor, and Sidney was punished for his boldness by 
several months' exclusion from the royal presence. 
But Languet was mistaken in supposing that he was 
in danger of imprisonment and might have to flee 
the country. " You will hardly find safety in Flan- 
ders," Languet wrote on the 30th of January, " and 
still less in France ; your religion shuts you out of 
Spain and Italy ; so that Germany is the only coun- 
try left to receive you, should you be forced to quit 
your own land." 

For some time previous Languet had been anxious 
that his friend, whom he had formerly counselled 
against taking a personal share in the Protestant 



1 86 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580 

struggle on the continent, should now join in the 
fight, if only for the sake of shaking off the courtly 
chains he was wearing. " If the Earl of Oxford's 
arrogance and insolence have awakened you from 
your sleep, he will have wronged you less than they 
who have been so indulgent to you," Languet had 
written on the 14th of November, 1579, and he had 
urged Sidney to follow this awakening by enlist- 
ment in the service of the Prince of Orange. " If 
your absence from home is not inconvenient to your 
noble father and your other kin, I think you ought 
to come. You will gain experience and information, 
and will return to them in such high repute that they 
will be glad of your absence and proud of what you 
have done." 

Instead of crossing the Channel, Sidney went to 
Wilton and its neighbourhood, to find in the company 
of his sister relief from the annoyance to which he 
had been exposed as a wearer of court livery who 
deemed it his duty to instruct as well as to obey 
Queen Elizabeth, and to make progress in the 
literary pursuits that were always pleasant to him. 




^^w^4^^s , uy r . 



CORNER OF WILTON HOUSE 



fB~c^^x 



(^•f^o^r^uh 




CHAPTER XL 

THE AREOPAGUS. 
1 578-1580. 




ENTION has been made of " The 

L^f^kl/^/ fl Lady of May,'' the masque 
Jt S v 1 J| written by Philip Sidney for 
^ ! re the entertainment of Queen 

P J^s B, 1 Elizabeth when she visited his 
ivO-™^ ^LM uncle at Wanstead on May-day, 
1578, and of his presence with 
the Court at Audley End in the following July, 
when a leading part in the compliments offered to 
her Majesty and her attendants was taken by Gabriel 
Harvey, the Cambridge scholar. Harvey, who was a 
native of Saffron Walden, wrote and printed in Sep- 
tember " Gratulationum Valdinensium Libri Qua- 
tuor," in honour of this royal visit to Cambridgeshire 
and its neighbourhood, and his book included a long 
poem in praise of Sidney, addressed " ad nobilissi- 
mum humanissimumque juvenem Philippum Sidneium, 
mihi multis nominibiis longe carissimnm." The poem 
refers in extravagant terms to Sidney's literary ex- 

187 



1 88 Sir Philip Sidney. [157&- 

ploits and other great achievements, and records the 
admiration in which he was then held by Henri 
Etienne (generally known in England as Henry 
Stephens), and many other learned men, besides 
Hubert Languet. Its absurd panegyric followed 
the fashion of the day, and needs much curtail- 
ment in order to bring it within bounds of sense 
and reason. But the fact that such a poem was 
addressed to Sidney in the summer of 1578 is signifi- 
cant and important. It shows us that " The Lady 
of May " was not a solitary diversion, and that Sid- 
ney was already known and highly thought of among 
men of letters, as well as among courtiers and poli- 
ticians, promoters of discovery in the New World, 
and champions of freedom and right government in 
the Old. 

Sidney's birth was contemporary with that of a 
new period, which was destined to be the greatest, in 
English literature. Spenser and Raleigh, Lyly and 
Hooker, were born one or two years earlier ; Peel 
and Chapman two or three years later. Francis 
Bacon was his junior by six years, Christopher Mar- 
lowe by nine, and William Shakespeare by ten. All 
these, and many others of mark, were children to- 
gether while early evidence was being given of the 
literary vigour which, perfected in them, was to make 
the age of Queen Elizabeth unrivalled in the history 
of intellectual activity. Sidney was two years old 
when the poems of Wyatt and Surrey, written long 
before, but then first published, set the fashion in 
England both of sonnet-making and of composition 
in blank verse. He was four when " The Mirror for 



1580] His Literary Training. 189 

Magistrates," chiefly famous for the part supplied by 
his father's friend, Thomas Sackville, afterwards 
Lord Buckhurst, and ultimately Earl of Dorset, 
offered an example of the skilful writing of narrative 
poetry with which allegory was blended. He was 
seven when the same lordly poet made the first 
English experiment in tragedy by the performance 
before Queen Elizabeth of his and Norton's play of 
" Ferrex and Porrex," afterwards called " Gorboduc." 
He was eight or nine when " The Schoolmaster " 
was written by Roger Ascham, another of his father's 
friends, and probably his mother's tutor, as well as 
Lady Jane Grey's and Queen Elizabeth's. 

The years before and after the appearance of 
" The Schoolmaster " are notable for their richness 
in able works on learned themes, and it is to this 
class of literature that Sidney seems to have given 
most heed in his youth. When Sidney was fourteen 
Ascham died. But Ascham, living in his books and 
in the memory of his associates, was, together with 
Hubert Languet, the young man's guide, both in 
the subjects and in the methods of his study. 
Zealously applying himself to the study of lan- 
guages, Sidney valued them, not for their own sakes, 
but as necessary means to an understanding of 
philosophy and history. History he read, and en- 
joined his brother Robert to read, according to the 
plan indicated by the author of " The Schoolmas- 
ter," — " marking diligently the causes, counsels, acts, 
and issues in all great attempts ; in causes, what is 
just or unjust ; in counsels, what is purposed wisely 
or rashly; in acts, what is done courageously or 



19O Sir Philip Sidney. [1578- 

faintly ; and of every issue noting some general 
lesson of wisdom and warnings for like matters in 
time to come." And in pursuing philosophy he 
followed the same wise teacher, caring little for 
Duns Scotus and " all the rabble of barbarous 
questionists," as Ascham had termed them, and 
mainly fixing his attention upon Plato and Aris- 
totle. Declaring himself anxious to learn Greek, if 
only for the sake of studying Aristotle's writings in 
Aristotle's words, he yet felt sympathy for the new 
Platonism, and the stout arguments against Aris- 
totelian doctrine, urged by Ramus. Ramus was one 
of the victims of the St. Bartholomew massacre, and 
it is possible that Sidney met him in Paris. When 
three years later the then famous Banosius trans- 
lated his friend's " Commentaries," and prefixed to 
them a life of the martyr, he promised the first copy 
of the book to Sidney, at that time only one-and- 
twenty, because, he said, of the young man's fond- 
ness for its theme, and of his ability to make it 
known among English scholars. With English as 
well as foreign scholars, including both theologians 
and anti-theologians, Sidney kept up close acquaint- 
ance all through his life. We have seen something 
of his relations with Philip du Plessis-Mornay. We 
shall presently find him in the company of Giordano 
Bruno. 

When Sidney began life as a courtier in 1575, the 
bustle and frivolity of the Court did not favour 
abstruse study ; but, in their own way, they fur- 
nished literary suggestion. In such masques and 
allegorical entertainments as he witnessed at Kenil- 



1580] Among the Playwrights. 191 

worth, there was rough preparation for the English 
drama ; and if they gave hints to Shakespeare — 
who, it has been guessed, was present as a boy at 
the Kenilworth pageants, and remembered them 
when writing " A Midsummer Night's Dream " — 
they were not without effect on smaller craftsmen 
like Sidney. At Kenilworth Sidney met Thomas 
Sackville, and many other courtiers who emulated 
Sackville's skill in writing. There also he saw, and 
perhaps began a brief friendship with, George Gas- 
coigne, a man of somewhat humbler birth, but a 
better poet, with more pungent wit and dramatic 
vigour, than any of the others. Gascoigne died in 
1577, before reaching his fiftieth year, leaving, be- 
sides other works, a " Steel Glass," wherein were 
reflected both his own strength as a satirist and 
many of the vices and follies of the time. 

Gascoigne, who had the Earl of Leicester for one 
of his patrons, chronicled " The Princely Pleasures 
of the Court at Kenilworth," which he had had a 
large share in producing. Another chronicler and 
part-producer was Robert Langham, a " servant " to 
Leicester, and a sort of usher to the Privy Council, 
who has left an amusing account of his experiences 
and occupations as a hanger-on at Court, a courtier's 
courtier. " If the Council sit, I am at hand," he 
reported. " If any make babbling, ' Peace,' say I, 
'wot ye where ye are?' If I take a listener, or a 
prier in at the chinks or at the lock-hole, I am by 
and by in the bones of him. But now they keep 
good order : they know me well enough." Business 
being over, Langham went on to say, " for dinner 



192 Sir Philip Sidney. [1578- 

and supper I have twenty places to go to, and 
heartily prayed too. In afternoons and a nights, 
sometimes I am with the right-worshipful Sir George 
Howard, as good a gentleman as ever lives ; and 
sometimes at my good Lady Sidney's chamber, a 
noblewoman that I am as much bound unto as any 
poor man may be unto so gracious a lady ; and 
sometimes in some other places ; but always among 
the gentlewomen, by my good will. Sometimes I 
foot it with dancing ; now with my gittern, or else 
with my cithern, then at the virginals — ye know 
nothing comes amiss to me. Then carol I up a song 
withal ; then by and by they come flocking about 
me like bees to honey ; and ever they cry, ' Another, 
good Langham, another ! ' And to say truth, what 
with mine eyes, as I can amorously gloat it, with my 
Spanish sospires, my French keighes, my Italian 
didcets, my Dutch hovez, my double release, my 
high reaches, my fine feigning, my deep diapason, 
my wanton warbles, my running, my timing, my 
tuning, and my twinkling, I can gratify the masters 
as well as the proudest of them. By my troth, it 
is sometimes high midnight ere I can get from 
them!" 

Robert Langham may be taken as a fair specimen 
of the tribe of jovial men who helped to amuse the 
courtiers of Queen Elizabeth, and the Queen herself 
and her ladies too, in days when the drama was in 
its infancy, and when all who performed it in rude 
or skilful ways only did so by license as " servants " 
of one or other nobleman, the Earl of Leicester 
being their chief patron. We may take it for 



15801 Among the Players. 193 

granted that Philip was often entertained by Lang- 
ham's buffooning in spare afternoons and evenings 
at Leicester House, in " my good Lady Sidney's 
chamber," and elsewhere. This Robert Langham 
was doubtless a kinsman, perhaps a brother, of the 
John Langham for whom, along with James Bur- 
bage, John Perkyn, William Johnson, and Robert 
Wylson, the Earl of Leicester obtained from Queen 
Elizabeth in May, 1574, a special privilege " to use, 
exercise, and occupy the art and faculty of playing 
comedies, tragedies, interludes, stage plays, and such 
other, like as they have already used and studied, or 
hereafter shall use and study, as well for the recrea- 
tion of our loving subjects as for our solace and 
pleasure when we shall think good to see them." 
That was the first royal patent for a company of 
players on record in England. Beginning his court- 
ier's life just a year afterwards, Sidney was, like his 
uncle, a great supporter of this movement, siding 
with the players in their feud with the Common 
Council of London, and especially with Burbage 
and the rest of " the Earl of Leicester's men," who 
obtained leave to build in 1576, the old Blackfriars 
Theatre, which then had for its only rivals the Theatre 
— so called by virtue of its claim to priority — and the 
Curtain in Shoreditch. 

Burbage's company included, if not from the com- 
mencement, soon afterwards, Richard Tarleton, the 
most famous of all the clowns of the Elizabethan 
day, the " fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent 
fancy," who has been identified with the " poor 
Yorick " of Hamlet. Tarleton was of plebeian 
13 



194 Sir Philip Sidney. [1578- 

origin, the son of a swineherd, we are told, whom 
one of the Earl of Leicester's " servants " found 
tending his father's swine, and discovered to be a lad 
of such rare humour that he was brought to Court, 
where he soon became a prime favourite. " Our 
Tarleton," says Fuller, " was master of his faculty. 
When Queen Elizabeth was serious (I dare not say 
sullen) and out of good humour, he could undump- 
ish her at his pleasure. Her highest favourites would 
in some cases go to Tarleton before they would go 
to the Queen, and he was their usher to prepare their 
advantageous access to her. In a word, he told the 
Queen more of her faults than most of her chaplains, 
and cured her melancholy better than all her phy- 
sicians." Tarleton was one of the twelve players 
w r hom the Queen, when she was visiting Sir Francis 
Walsingham at Barn Elms, appointed " to have 
wages and livery as grooms of the chamber," one of 
them being Thomas Wilson, famed for his " quick, 
delicate, refined, and extemporal wit," while Tarleton, 
" for a wondrous, plentiful, and extemporal wit, was 
the wonder of his time, and so beloved that men 
used his picture for their signs." When not at 
Court or on the stage, Tarleton lived at the Sheba, 
a tavern in Gracechurch Street kept by his wife, 
whose nagging tongue, it was said, was a source 
of trouble to him. 

How well Sidney thought of Tarleton may be 
inferred from the fact that in 1582 the courtier stood 
godfather to the player's child, who was christened 
Philip after him. From his death-bed, two years 
after Sidney's death, Tarleton wrote to Walsingham 



1580] Friendship with Gabriel Harvey. 195 

reminding him of this, and imploring him to befriend 
the boy who would soon be fatherless and the wife 
about to become a widow.* 

These things illustrate Sidney's connection with 
the English drama before Shakespeare gave it new 
life and dignity. Of course he saw more of the plays 
and players at performances in private houses than 
at places of public entertainment ; but perhaps he 
was one of the " lively copemates " of Edmund 
Spenser who, according to Gabriel Harvey, were in 
the habit of going to " laugh their mouths and 
bellies full for pence or twopence apiece," when 
" my Lord of Leicester's, or my Lord of Warwick's, 
or Vaux's, or my Lord Rich's players " were to be 
seen at the Theatre in Shoreditch.f 

Sidney had probably made the acquaintance of 
Gabriel Harvey some while before they met at 
Audley End in July, 1578. Harvey was then one of 
the Earl of Leicester's "men." " Who is this?" 
asked the Queen, when the Cambridge teacher of 
rhetoric and classical literature came up to pay his 
respects to her. " Is it Leicester's man that we 
were speaking of ? " On being told that it was, she 
added " I will not deny you my hand, Harvey." 
There was talk at that time of Harvey's going 
abroad, in some unexplained capacity, on Leicester's 
behalf. This arrangement apparently fell through, 
but one which is far more noteworthy ensued on the 



* State Papers, Elizabeth, Domestic ; Tarleton to Walsingham, 
August (?), 1588. 

f "The Letter-Book of Gabriel Harvey" (Camden Society, 1884), 
pp. 67, 68. 



196 Sir Philip Sidney. [1578- 

Audley End meeting. Harvey's favourite pupil, 
Edmund Spenser, was brought under the Earl's 
notice, and soon afterwards we find him at Leicester 
House, as a sort of secretary or confidential agent of 
its owner, and, what is yet more interesting, as 
Sidney's friend.* 

About two years older than Sidney, Spenser had . 
matriculated at Harvey's college, Pembroke Hall, 
Cambridge, in 1569, and there he had remained till 
at any rate 1576, writing poems, and studying older 
poets, under Harvey's guidance. The guidance is 
generally supposed to have been, from a literary 
point of view, more injurious than helpful ; but, if 
Harvey was fond of classical metres and involved 
diction, his influence certainly had no lasting effect, 
and there was more jest than earnest in his counsels. 
Harvey was a genial man of the world as well as a 
scholar, too much in sympathy with all new move- 
ments of thought to seriously approve the pedantries 
he defended in terms that look more like mockery 
than praise. Two of his Cambridge friends, who 
were also Spenser's, were John Still, afterwards 



* In Spenser's "View of the State of Ireland," Ireneus, who 
throughout the dialogue speaks the writer's thoughts and relates many 
of the writer's experiences as his own, says that he was present at the 
execution of Murrogh O'Brien at Limerick, which occurred in July, 
1577, while Sir Henry Sidney was Lord Deputy of Ireland. If we 
could be sure that Spenser himself saw what Ireneus says was seen 
by him, we should be able to date back a year or more the poet's 
acquaintance with Philip Sidney, or at any rate with Philip's father. 
But there is nothing else to warrant the assumption that Spenser was 
in Ireland so early as 1577, whereas there are good grounds for 
supposing that he was in Lancashire at this time. 




EDMUND SPENSER. 

FROM AN ENGRAVING BY W. B. SCOTT, 



1580] Friendship with Edmund Spenser. 197 

Bishop of Bath and Wells, writer of the old 
comedy, " Gammer Gurton's Needle," and Thomas 
Preston, who wrote the old tragedy, " Cambyses, 
King of Persia." In 1576 Spenser left Cambridge 
to reside in the north of England, perhaps at Hurst- 
wood in Lancashire, and, if his " Shepherd's Calen- 
dar " is to be regarded as history, to fall in love 
with " the widow's daughter of the glen " whom 
there and elsewhere he calls Rosalind, styling him- 
self Colin Clout and Harvey Hobbinol. By Harvey's 
advice and on his introduction, Spenser left the 
north and became an inmate of Leicester House in 
the autumn of 1578 or not long afterwards. 

This was a memorable incident. If Spenser had 
a useful patron in the Earl of Leicester, he had a far 
more useful friend in Sidney ; and to Sidney the 
friendship that sprang up between them was, in lit- 
erary ways, far more serviceable than to Spenser. 
To it we must mainly attribute all the seriousness 
that there was in Sidney's work as an author. He 
had already, however, begun to find amusement in 
authorship ; and at first — to some extent always — the 
difference in rank between the two caused Spenser 
to regard himself, doubtless without being so re- 
garded by them, as inferior to Sidney and the other 
courtiers who welcomed his company. " The two 
worthy gentlemen, Mr. Sidney and Mr. Dyer," 
Spenser said in a letter written to Gabriel Harvey on 
the 16th of October, 1579, " have me, I thank them, 
in some use of familiarity ; of whom and to whom 
what speech passeth for your credit and estimation 
I leave yourself to conceive, having always so well 



198 Sir Philip Sidney. [1578 

conceived of my unfeigned affection and good will 
towards you." 

The " some use of familiarity " must have been 
considerable for at least several months before Oc- 
tober, 1579. All through this year, while he was 
rinding both pleasure and annoyance in his attend- 
ance on the Queen, trying to act with dignity as a 
courtier and to show himself a statesman as well, 
taking a prominent part in the opposition to the 
Queen's talked-of marriage with the Duke of Anjou 
long before the date of his famous letter to her on 
the subject in January, 1 580, and having to resent 
or submit to much rudeness from rivals like the 
Earl of Oxford, it is certain that Sidney, with Dyer, 
Greville, and other friends, often sought refreshment 
in the society of Spenser at Leicester House and 
elsewhere — with perhaps an occasional holiday at 
Penshurst. 

Scarcely any record exists of visits paid by Sidney 
to Penshurst, and we know of none in which Spenser 
was his companion there. But there can be no 
doubt that in the year 1579, while the old house 
was being enlarged and beautified, he ran down 
oftener than usual to his father's proper home, 
though it was rarely tenanted by his father, and 
that Spenser was frequently there with him before 
the poet went, to Ireland in the autumn of 1580. 
We see more suggestion of Lancashire than of Kent 
— from Rosalind's frequent appearance in it down to 
the dialect it favours — in " The Shepherd's Calen- 
dar" ; but its many reminiscences of the scenery of 
Penshurst and the neighbourhood warrant the con- 



1580] Sidney and Spenser, 199 

elusion that it was partly inspired and perhaps in 
part written there, while other passages could no- 
where else have been penned so well as at Leicester 
House or other purlieus of the Court, as the result 
of the writer's intercourse with Sidney and Sidney's 
uncle. It was to Sidney that Spenser, calling himself 
Immerito, dedicated " The Shepherd's Calendar " : 

Go, little book, thyself present 
As child whose parent is unkent, 
To him that is the president 
Of nobless and of chivalry ; 
And if that envy bark at thee, 
As sure it will, for succour flee 
Under the shadow of his wing ; 
And, asked who thee forth did bring, 
A shepherd's swain, say, did thee sing 
All as his straying flock he fed ; 
And, when his honour has thee read, 
Crave pardon for thy hardihead. 

The " little book " was not published till the end 
of 1579, but its editor, E. K. — supposed to be 
Edward Kirke, — writing to Gabriel Harvey on the 
10th of April, said that its author had " already 
in the beginning, dedicated it to the noble and 
worthy gentleman, the right worshipful Master 
Philip Sidney, a special favourer and maintainer 
of all kinds of learning." 

Writing to Harvey on the 16th of October, while 
" The Shepherd's Calendar " must have been passing 
through the press, Spenser said of Sidney, Dyer, and 
their friends : " Now they have proclaimed in their 
Areopagus a general surceasing and silence of bald 
rhymers, and also of the very best too ; instead 



200 Sir Philip Sidney. [1578- 

whereof they have, by authority of their whole 
senate, prescribed certain laws and rules of quan- 
tities of English syllables for English verse." This 
sentence shows us that the Areopagus had been in 
existence for some time before October, 1579, and 
that it had then entered on a new pastime. 

The Areopagus was a sort of club, composed 
mainly of courtiers, who aspired to be also men of 
letters, apparently with Sidney as its president, to 
which were admitted other men of letters — Spenser 
in particular — who hardly aspired to rank with the 
courtiers. It seems to have had Harvey as a corre- 
sponding member and counsellor-in-chief. Among 
its exercises we may reckon Sidney's " Lady of 
May," produced in 1578, and some other of his 
compositions which, though undated, bear marks of 
crudeness. Dyer and Greville were evidently busy 
members. Though very little of his writing sur- 
vives, Dyer was accounted a great poet in his time, 
and the ponderous tragedies by Greville which are 
extant were, as he tells us, written in his younger 
days, when Sidney was his associate in literary pur- 
suits. Who were the other members of the club we 
know not ; but its interest to us is in the connection 
of Spenser and Sidney with it ; Sidney as the 
foremost and worthiest of the Elizabethan courtiers 
who found refining and exalting occupation for 
themselves, and relief from Court frivolities and 
State squabbles, in cultivating the Muses ; Spenser, 
as, apart from Shakespeare who was still in his 
teens, the greatest of Elizabethan poets. Spenser's 
fame was of his own winning and his own deserving, 



1580] The Areopagus. 201 

but he owed much, and he thankfully acknowledged 
it, to the high-souled and pure-minded companion 
who was his patron, in the best sense of the term. 
And Sidney, only in his twenty-fifth year, was not 
the helper of Spenser alone. As E. K. testifies, he 
was " the special favourer and maintainer of all kinds 
of learning." Of this we shall see more hereafter. 
At present we must think of him as the president, 
not only " of nobless and of chivalry," but also of the 
Areopagus, which in the autumn of 1579 added to 
its other functions, as Spenser said, " a general sur- 
ceasing and silence of bald rhymers, and also of the 
very best too." 

This part of the task taken upon itself by the 
Areopagus has been more ridiculed, and has been 
made to appear more important, than there is reason 
for.* There was evidently more frolic than serious- 
ness in it, and there was a serious purpose in the 
frolic. We have no account of any contemporary 
literary club like the Areopagus, but there were other 
cliques of literary workmen with patrons of their 
own. One such centred round the Earl of Oxford, 
and it is noteworthy that the rules for unrhymed 
versification which Sidney appears to have drawn up 
with Harvey's assistance were issued only a few 
weeks after Sidney's open quarrel with Oxford in the 
Whitehall tennis-court. How much personal feeling 
or partisanship was mixed up in the adaptation of 
the classical metres prescribed by the Areopagus may 
be seen from this example of the rude way in which, 

* See especially Haslewood's " Ancient Critical Essays upon 
English Poets and Poems " (1818), vol. ii. 



202 Sir Philip Sidney. [1578- 

as Thomas Nash tells us, Harvey " came very short 
yet sharp upon my lord of Oxford, in a rattling 
bundle of English hexameters " : 

Strait to the back like a shirt ; and close to the breech like a diveling ; 
A little apish hat, couched fast to the pate, starched to the purpose ; 
Delicate in speech ; quaint in array ; conceited in all points ; 
In courtly guiles a passing singular odd man. 

The poets of the Areopagus were quite as anxious 
to make fun of their rivals as to establish classical 
forms in English verse-writing. Gabriel Harvey, 
however, evidently believed in his hobby ; and 
Spenser — though he declared with some truth that 
all such productions stumble " either like a lame 
gosling that draweth one leg after, or like a lame dog 
that holdeth one leg up " — rode the hobby with 
some skill, as appears from this utterance of a lover's 
woes : 



Unhappy verse ! the witness of my unhappy state, 
Make thyself fluttering wings of thy fast flying 
Thought, and fly forth unto my love, wheresoe'er she be, 

Whether lying restless on heavy bed, or else 
Sitting so cheerless at the cheerful board, or else 
Playing alone, careless, on her heavenly virginals. 

If in bed, tell her that my eyes can take no rest ; 

If at board, tell her that my mouth can eat no meat ; 

If at her virginals, tell her I can bear no mirth. 

Tell her that her pleasures were wont to lull me to sleep ; 

Tell her that her beauty was wont to feed mine eyes ; 

Tell her that her sweet tongue was wont to make me mirth. 



1580] Areopagus Exercises, 203 

Now do I nightly waste, wanting my kindly rest ; 
Now do I daily starve, wanting my lively food ; 
Now do I always die, wanting my timely mirth. 

Sidney played longer than his friend with classic 
measures. He used them freely in his " Arcadia." 
Here, for instance, is part of a lover's strain in 
sapphics : 

If mine eyes can speak to do hearty errand, 
Or mine eyes' language else do hap to judge of, 
So that eyes' message be of her received, 
Hope, we do live yet. 

But if eyes fail then when I most do need them, 
Or if eyes' language be not unto her known, 
So that eyes' message do return rejected, 
Hope, we do both die. 

Yet dying and dead do we sing her honour ; 
So become our tombs monuments of her praise ; 
So becomes our loss the triumph of her gain. 
Hers be the glory, 

If the spheres, senseless, do yet hold a music, 
If the swan's sweet voice be not heard but at death, 
If the mute timber, when it hath the life lost, 
Yieldeth a lute's tune. 

But at no time was imitation of classical measures 
other than a pastime either to Sidney or to Spenser. 
Sidney was now only commencing the authorship 
that was never much more than a diversion from 
what he regarded as the real business of his life. 
Spenser, in spite of any Areopagus rules to the 
contrary, was now producing plenty of rhymed 
verse. 



204 Sir Philip Sidney. L1578- 

In 1579 an< ^ I $&° Spenser wrote several poems, of 
which all but the titles, and a few vague references 
to them by E. K. and others, as well as by himself, 
have been lost, or which may have been re-shaped by 
him in later works. One of these was called " Stem- 
mata Dudleiana," clearly a poem in praise of the Earl 
of Leicester and his kindred. " Of my ' Stemmata 
Dudleiana,' " Spenser wrote to Harvey in April, 
1580, "especially of the sundry apostrophes therein, 
addressed to you know whom " — apparently to Sid- 
ney, — " must more advertisement be had than so 
lightly to send them abroad. Howbeit, trust me, 
though I do never do very well, yet, in my own 
fancy, I never did better." Another was a poem 
called "Slumber," written before October, 1579, 
when Spenser told Harvey he thought of dedicating 
it " and the other pamphlets " to Master Dyer — to 
whom a year later he took upon himself the responsi- 
bility of dedicating a work of Harvey's, " Verlayes," 
as to " the right worshipful gentleman and famous 
courtier, Master Edward Dyer, in a manner our 
only English poet." It is worth noting that about 
this time Harvey, in a letter to Spenser, spoke of 
Dyer and Sidney as " the two very diamonds of her 
Majesty's Court for many special and rare qualities." 

In Spenser's letter mentioning his " Slumber " 
there is mention of another and very different work, 
" The School of Abuse," written by Stephen Gos- 
son in 1579, and dedicated to Sidney. It was 
according to the title-page, " a pleasant invective 
against poets, pipers, players, jesters, and such like 
caterpillars of a commonwealth ; setting up the flag 



15803 " The Defence of Poesy!' 205 

of defiance to their mischievous exercise, and over- 
throwing their bulwarks, by profane writers, natural 
reason, and common experience." The book in no 
way agreed with Sidney's views, and Gosson was, as 
Spenser informed Harvey in October, " for his labour 
scorned, if at least it be in the goodness of that 
nature to scorn : such folly is it not to regard afore- 
hand the inclination and quality of him to whom we 
dedicate our books." 

Whatever scorn Sidney may have felt he seems to 
have kindly kept from the knowledge of Gosson, 
who, in his ignorant boldness, dedicated to him in 
November another book, " The Ephemerides of 
Phialo." "I cannot," he here said, "but acknowl- 
edge my safety in your worship's patronage, and 
offer you ' Phialo,' my chief est jewel, as a manifest 
pledge of my thankful heart." 

We may readily imagine that, instead of scorning 
the poor author, Sidney, poor enough himself, sent 
him a handsome present for his pains, one of the 
kind then generally looked for by book-writers from 
those they complimented with dedications. But 
Sidney was not converted by " The School of 
Abuse." On the contrary, he wrote in reply to it 
" The Defence of Poesy," which is also known as 
" An Apology for Poetry." * 

The polished style and sober judgments on most 
of the subjects touched upon in this treatise might 



* It was published under both titles, in separate editions, in 1595. 
Some critics now prefer to call it "An Apology for Poetry " ; but 
Sidney himself says, in his opening paragraph : " I have just cause 
to make a pitiful Defence of poor Poetry." 



206 Sir Philip Sidney. [1578- 

justify us in assigning it to a later date than " The 
Arcadia," and " Astrophel and Stella." But there 
are grounds for thinking that it was written before 
either of those works. Though in it " The School 
of Abuse " is not mentioned, and is but vaguely 
alluded to, it was evidently prompted by Gosson's 
book, and, as " The Shepherd's Calendar" is here 
spoken of by Sidney as the latest of the noteworthy 
poems he had seen, it may be supposed to have 
been penned soon after the publication of Spenser's 
work. Two points, at any rate, are clear. The one 
is, that when Sidney wrote it, he had not broken 
away from the theories of the Areopagus ; the 
other, that he had already acquired reputation as a 
poet. " Having," he says in his opening paragraph, 
" I know not by what mischance, in these my not 
old years and idlest times, stepped into the title of a 
poet, I am provoked to say something to you in 
defence of that my unelected vocation, which if I 
handle with more good will than good reasons, bear 
with me." Those are words that might have fallen 
gracefully from the lips of the president of the 
Areopagus. Let it be remembered, moreover, that 
what Sidney regarded as his " idlest times " were the 
months in 1580 which he passed in enforced absence 
from the Court, and that, whenever " The Defence 
of Poesy " was written, the views and criticisms set 
forth in it were just such as may have been offered 
by Sidney during the brief period, between the end 
of 1578 and the autumn of 1580, which covered all 
his personal intercourse with Spenser. 

That intercourse was certainly close while it 



1580] Spenser s Debt to Sidney, 207 

lasted, and in it many seeds were sown from which 
rich fruit resulted for both men. " The Fairy Queen " 
had been projected, and its earlier portions written 
or sketched out, before Spenser removed to London 
and came under Sidney's influence, and by far the 
larger part of this splendid fragment was not com- 
pleted till after Sidney's death ; and that other 
splendid fragment, "The Arcadia," was begun and 
carried on as much under the inspiration of Sidney's 
sister, the Countess of Pembroke, as of Spenser. 
But it is not over-fanciful to assume that the schemes 
of these two works, each an epic in its way, were 
often discussed by the two friends as they held 
pleasant converse in Leicester House, or strolled, 
with opportunities for yet pleasanter converse, 
through the woods of Penshurst and by the banks 
of the Medway. 

Among the complimentary verses prefixed to the 
first edition of "The Fairy Queen," in 1590, are 
some by W. H., which indicate a portion of Spenser's 
debt to Sidney. 

When Spenser saw the fame was spread so large, 
Through Fairy-land, of their renowned Queen, 

Loth that his muse should take so great a charge 
As in such haughty matter to be seen, 

To seem a shepherd then he made his choice : 

But Sidney heard him sing and knew his voice. 

And as Ulysses brought fair Thetis' son 

From his retired life to manage arms, 
So Spenser was by Sidney's speeches won 

To blaze her fame, not fearing future harms ; 
For well he knew his muse would soon be tired 
In her high praise whom all the world admired. 



2o8 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580 

Yet, as Achilles in those warlike frays 

Did win the palm from all the Grecian peers, 

So Spenser now, to his immortal praise, 
Hath won the laurel now from all his feres. 

What though his task exceed a human wit ? 

He is excused, since Sidney thought it fit. 

And the debt was acknowledged by Spenser himself 
in the sonnet introducing " The Fairy Queen," which 
he addressed to Sidney's sister after Sidney had been 
dead three years : 

Remembrance of that most heroic spirit — 
The heaven's pride, the glory of our days, 

Which now triumpheth, through immortal merit 
Of his brave virtues, crowned with lasting bays 
Of heavenly bliss and everlasting praise — 

Who first my muse did lift out of the floor 
To sing his sweet delights in lowly lays, 

Bids me, most noble lady, to adore 

His goodly image, living evermore 

In the divine resemblance of your face, 

Which with your virtues ye embellish more, 
And native beauty deck with heavenly grace. 

For his and for your own especial sake, 

Vouchsafe from him this token in good worth to take. 





CHAPTER XII. 

AT WILTON. 
1580. 



%%fe£ fS & g ~*& 03 




IDNEY may have paid more 
than one visit to his sister at 
Wilton in the course of the 
two and a half years following 
the summer of 1577, when he 
went down to congratulate her 
on her marriage, and he must 
certainly have seen much of her during her attend- 
ance at Court ; but we have no record of his being 
again, before the early spring of 1580, in the stately 
mansion, since destroyed by fire, which had been 
built, according to Holbein's plans, in the loveliest 
part of Wiltshire. He was now to be there and in 
the neighbourhood for half a year or more. With- 
drawing from the Court in dudgeon and disgrace, he 
could nowhere obtain so much refreshment as in the 
company of the Countess of Pembroke, the esteemed 
lady whom Spenser, and many others, never tired 
of praising. 

14 209 



210 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580 

The gentlest shepherdess that lives this day, 
And most resembling, both in shape and sprite, 
Her brother dear, 

Spenser calls her in one place ; and in another he 
speaks of her as one 

In whose brave mind, as in a golden coffer, 
All heavenly gifts and riches locked are ; 

More rich than pearls of Ind or gold of Ophir, 
And in her sex more wonderful and rare. 



Sidney was at Wilton on the 25th of March, 1580; 
and probably his mother was there, too, for a fort- 
night later his nephew William, afterwards the friend 
and patron of Shakespeare, was born. He was there, 
also on the 28th of April, the baby's christening day, 
when he represented the Earl of Leicester, who was 
one of the sponsors, the others being the Earl of 
Warwick and Queen Elizabeth — on whose behalf the 
Countess of Warwick appeared. 

Her Majesty was willing to pay a compliment to 
the Countess of Pembroke, for whom, from first to 
last, she had genuine liking, and with whom it was 
not possible for her to pick a quarrel. But she was 
angry with the rest of the family. Leicester was 
still out of favour, and with Sir Henry Sidney she 
was again displeased. 

Ever since his return from Ireland Sir Henry had 
been busy as Lord President of Wales, and in the 
early months of 1580 he often resorted to Wilton. 
Queen Elizabeth sent a message in June to say that 
she disliked this proceeding, and that, considering 








MARY HERBERT, COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. 

FROM ZUCCHERO'S PORTRAIT AT PENSHURST. 



1580] In Retirement at Wilton. 2 1 1 

the dangerous state of Wales and the need of keep- 
ing it in a proper state of defence, Sir Henry ought 
to be constantly at his post. In August she cen- 
sured him again ; this time for not being more zeal- 
ous in hunting down Catholics and thus advancing 
the reformation of " recusants and other obstinate 
persons in religion." "Your lordship," Walsingham 
wrote to him, " had need to walk warily ; for your 
doings are narrowly observed, and her Majesty is apt 
to give ear to any that shall ill you." 

Philip, holding no important office under the 
Crown, could not be taken to task. He was free, 
indeed, to go back to Court much sooner than he 
thought fit. The Earl of Leicester was restored to 
favour in July, and it seems that Philip was expected 
to at once rejoin his uncle. On the 2d of August 
he wrote to Leicester saying that he had a bad cold 
which kept him from Court, and that doubtless her 
Majesty would ask for him. " But," he added, " so 
long as her Majesty sees a silk doublet upon me, 
her Highness will think me in good case." * 

He was in no hurry to return, and, when he drd, it 
appears to have been by the persuasion of his friends, 
one of them being Languet, who, as soon as he 
found his fears that Sidney might be sent to prison 
were groundless, was anxious he should resume his 
services to his country and the Protestant cause in 
Europe. " All who are in these parts," Languet 
wrote from Antwerp on the 24th of September, 
" wonder that you should delight in this long re- 

* MS. in the possession of Mr. Cottrell-Dormer, at Rousham, near 
Oxford. 



212 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580 

tirement of yours. They can readily understand 
your liking to be with those you especially love ; 
but they think it undignified for you to remain so 
long concealed. They fear, also, that seclusion will 
loosen the stern vigour with which you formerly 
worked so nobly, and that listlessness, which at one 
time you despised, is gradually possessing your 
soul." 

There was consistency in Languet's alternate 
counselling of Sidney, when he was at Court, to 
avoid becoming engrossed in courtly pleasures, and, 
when he was away from it, to remember that there 
were duties for him to perform there. " While you 
were living with me," he said in this letter, " you 
used to tell me that you hated the noise and glitter 
of courts, and were resolved to live in honest ease and 
in the society of a few real friends ; but I supposed 
that your thoughts would change as you grew older, 
and that your duty to your country would keep you 
in public life. And I seemed to suppose rightly. No 
sooner had you returned to England than all men 
admired you and all good men sought your friend- 
ship. Above all, your noble Queen treated you 
with marked good-will, and admitted you to great 
familiarity with herself, and honoured you with that 
famous embassage to the Emperor which, three 
years ago, you conducted so creditably." One of 
his reasons for quitting Germany and coming to live 
in the Netherlands, Languet went on to say, was 
that he might better watch his friend's advancement. 
" But when I came hither I found a cloud thrown 
over your fortunes, which turned my pleasure into 



1580] In Retirement at Wilton. 213 

sorrow. Surely this ought not to be. Ask yourself, 
I do beseech you, how far it is honourable for you 
to lurk where you are, while your country is claim- 
ing help from all her sons. If the advice you offered 
to your Queen, thinking it helpful to the nation, was 
not taken as it deserved to be, you ought not on that 
account to be angry with your country or to desist 
from seeking its safety. When Themistocles pro- 
posed measures beneficial to the State, and Eury- 
biades threatened to strike him unless he held his 
peace, he answered, ' Strike, but hear.' Imitate 
Themistocles." 

In accordance with that advice, Sidney went back 
to Court in the autumn. He was at Leicester House 
on the 10th of October, when he wrote one of the 
long letters to his brother Robert which has already 
been mentioned. It was a very wise letter, full of 
shrewd and kind remarks, showing his desire that 
Robert should make good use of his opportunities 
while studying and travelling abroad ; but its earn- 
estness and forced gaiety betrayed weariness. " I 
write this to you," Philip said, " as one that, for myself, 
have given over the delight in the world." One of 
the studies he urged Robert not to neglect was 
music. " You will not believe what a want I find it 
in my melancholy times." 

It was by way of shaking off his melancholy, and 
to please his sister, that Sidney spent much of his 
time at Wilton in writing " The Countess of Pem- 
broke's Arcadia," of which probably a considerable 
portion was composed in the course of this summer. 
" Here now have you, most dear and most worthy 



214 Sir -Philip Sidney. L1580 

to be most dear lady, this idle work of mine," he 
wrote a year or so later, in dedicating to her so 
much as he had put together before he set it aside 
for more serious occupation. " You desired me to 
do it, and your desire to my heart is an absolute 
commandment. Now it is done only for you, only 
to you. If you keep it to yourself, or to such 
friends who will weigh error in the balance of good- 
will, I hope for the father's sake it will be pardoned, 
perchance made much of, though in itself it have 
deformities. For, indeed, for severer eyes it is not, 
being but a trifle, and that triflingly handled. Your 
dear self can best witness the manner, being done in 
loose sheets of paper, most of it in your presence, 
the rest by sheets sent unto you as fast as they were 
done. In sum, a young head — not so well stayed as 
I would it were, and shall be, when God will — having 
many, many fancies begotten in it, if it had not been 
in some way delivered, would have grown a mon- 
ster ; and more sorry might I be that they came in 
than that they got out." 

Those modest, naive sentences, which must be re- 
membered in judging the merits of "The Arcadia," 
show the conditions under which the work, a pastime 
and rather more, was commenced. Sidney, who a 
few months before must have seen the first rough 
sketch of his friend Spenser's " Fairy Queen," had 
doubtless not only discussed with him the plan and 
purpose of that poem, but also broached to him the 
project of a somewhat kindred work of his own, one 
that, like " The Fairy Queen," should combine alle- 
gory and satire in a bold presentment, fanciful and 



1580] Writing- " The Arcadia." 21 



fictitious, of an ideal world, typifying vices and 
follies as well as wisdom and virtue. But perhaps 
" The Arcadia " — so much as there is of it — would 
never have been written had not Sidney come down 
to Wilton for rest and refreshment and, at the bid, 
ding of his sister, found both in setting forth the 
astounding adventures of Musidorus and Pyrocles 
and the many difficulties and complications that 
hampered them, and that hampered no less Philocleg 
and Pamela, before the two brave youths could sev- 
erally enjoy the love of the two chaste maidens on 
whom their hearts were set. " My great uncle, Mr. 
T. Brown," Aubrey, a native of Salisbury, wrote 
concerning Sidney, " remembered him and said that 
when he was writing his ' Arcadia ' he was wont 
to take his table book out of his pocket and write 
down his notions as they came into his head, as he 
was hunting on our pleasant plains." 

Some of the local colouring in " The Arcadia " is 
evidently due to the scenery around Wilton, just as 
in its profusion of jousting and tourneying there are 
reminiscences of Sidney's own experiences in the 
Whitehall tilt-yard. For the characters sketched in 
it, moreover, Sidney may have taken some sugges- 
tions from the men and women known to him. But 
we must not suppose that in any one of them he 
intended to delineate his kinsfolk, friends, or rivals, 
or himself. They are all ideals, types of the tempera- 
ment or deportment, the physical or mental qualities, 
that he liked or disliked. In Musidorus, for instance, 
Sidney pictured the man he would gladly be when 
he assigned to him " a mind of most excellent 



216 Sir Philip Sidney. ti580 

composition, a piercing wit quite devoid of ostenta- 
tion, high erected thoughts seated in a heart of cour- 
tesy, an eloquence as sweet in the uttering as it was 
slow to come to the uttering, and a behaviour so 
noble as gave a majesty to adversity " ; yet Musidorus 
is not Sidney. Neither Philoclea nor Pamela, again, 
resembles the Countess of Pembroke ; but in draw- 
ing both portraits Sidney proved that from his 
sister Mary, and not from her alone, he had learned 
to reverence the finest charms of womanhood. 
"When I marked them both," said Musidorus to 
Pyrocles, " methought there was (if at least such 
perfections may receive the word of more) more 
sweetness in Philoclea, but more majesty in Pamela: 
methought love played in Philoclea's eyes, and 
threatened in Pamela's ; methought Philoclea's 
beauty only persuaded, but so persuaded as all 
hearts must yield ; Pamela's beauty used violence, 
and such violence as no heart could resist." 

"The Arcadia" shows remarkable art, and yet 
more remarkable purity, in its portrayal of woman- 
kind. As finished studies, endowed with flesh and 
blood, and also with mental and moral qualities con- 
sistently maintained through a long series of involved 
and very trying situations, Philoclea and Pamela are 
far more human and far more truly feminine than 
most of the conceptions of female character pre- 
sented by the Elizabethan writers. Nor do these two 
heroines stand alone. Some of Sidney's sketches 
of women are grotesque ; others are extravagant ; 
but in all, however much mockery or exaggeration 
they contain, we see the work of an artist who under- 



1580] Sidneys Ideal Women. 217 

stands his craft and has a clear vision of the picture 
he aims at drawing. 

In the skill and the delicacy of Sidney's women- 
portraiture there is welcome indication not only of his 
talent as an artist, but yet more of his temper as a 
man. He evidently had such accurate perception of 
the characteristics and capacities of " the other sex " 
as few of his own sex possessed or, possessing it, 
cared to display. It is not strange that, to amuse his 
sister or himself, he should have chosen to write a 
long love-story or rather concatenation of love-stories 
— which "The Arcadia" is, alike in its pastoral and 
in its heroic passages ; but it is strange that he should 
either have chosen or have been able to make all his 
interwoven love-stories serve for so dignified and so 
discriminating a presentment of womanhood at its 
best. Or this would be strange if it were not in 
keeping with all else that is known about his chival- 
rous disposition, which no adverse conditions could 
spoil. 

No doubt he had special inducements for setting 
down while he was at Wilton so " many, many 
fancies " about womankind, " begotten " in his 
"young head," which, he considered, " if it had not 
been in some way delivered, would have grown a 
monster." Pamela was but a vague idealisation of 
his sister, whose circumstances and experiences were 
no counterpart to those of the elder daughter of 
Basilius ; but Lady Pembroke may have suggested 
Pamela. If so, whence came the suggestion of 
Philoclea, the sister preferred by Pyrocles, who, 
more than Musidorus, resembles Sidney himself? 



2i8 Sir Philip Sidney. [158O 

Perhaps we may find a very shadowy suggestion 
indeed in Lady Penelope Devereux, the Stella to 
whom Sidney was soon, if he had not already begun, 
to render homage in verse. 

One of his Wilton occupations, during this or a 
later visit, was in helping the Countess of Pembroke 
with her rhymed version of " The Psalms of David." 
But only the first forty-three translations, which are 
of little merit, are attributed to Sidney. They are 
chiefly interesting, like his earlier work as a member 
of the Areopagus, for their evidence of his delight in 
literary exercises. They may also to some extent 
indicate his religious mood. 

This mood was constant, and was in no way con- 
tradictory to the zeal with which he threw himself 
into the Court gaieties that were part of his daily 
life as one of Queen Elizabeth's chief favourites, or 
amused himself with writing love-stories and love- 
ditties when he was removed from the royal 
presence. Though in Spenser's pastoral poem, 
" Astrophel," there is much that must not be taken 
literally, and though it contains one very suggestive 
couplet, which speaks of Sidney as 

In one thing only failing of the best 
That he was not so happy as the rest, 

we may accept as true this description of his friend : 

His sports were fair, his joyance innocent, 
Sweet without sour, and honey without gall ; 

And he himself seemed made for merriment, 
Merrily masquing both in bower and hall. 

There was no pleasure nor delightful play 

When Astrophel soever was away. 



1580] " Astrophel. " 219 

For he could pipe, and dance, and carol sweet 
Among the shepherds in their shearing feast, 

As summer's lark that with her song doth greet 
The dawning day forth coming from the east. 

And lays of love he also could compose : 

Thrice happy she whom he to praise did choose ! 

Sidney, while at Wilton, was not unmindful of the 
poet-friend whom he had left in London, but whose 
fortunes must have been to some extent over- 
shadowed by the displeasure that had fallen on the 
Earl of Leicester and his nephew. Spenser was 
now busily writing poems, but in want of the more 
lucrative employment which was soon found for 
him, apparently at Sidney's instigation. Lord Grey 
of Wilton, who, in the summer of 1 580, was appointed 
Lord Deputy of Ireland, and who reached Dublin 
on the 12th of August, was an intimate friend both 
of Philip Sidney and of his father. He looked to 
Sir Henry for counsel as to the way in which his 
troublesome business should be done, and he fol- 
lowed, as far as he could, the example of the ex- 
perienced administrator of Irish affairs. With him 
went Spenser, as his secretary, to be in the following 
March promoted to a well-paid clerkship in the Irish 
Court of Chancery. The poet may have owed this 
advancement to his own talents as a man of business, 
or to Lord Grey's good opinion of him ; but it was 
probably through the Sidneys' influence that he was 
started on the career which, distasteful to him in 
some ways, was on the whole much to his advantage. 

Meanwhile other friends were awaiting Sidney in 
London. Perhaps it was soon after his return to 



220 Sir Philip Sidney, [1580 

Court, in the autumn of 1 5 80, that he wrote a pretty 
pastoral, " upon his meeting with his two worthy 
friends and fellow-poets, Master Dyer and Master 
Fulke Greville," which thus begins : 

Join, mates, in mirth to me ; 

Grant pleasure to our meeting : 
Let Pan, our good god, see 

How grateful is our greeting. 
Join hearts and hands, so let it be ; 
Make but one mind in bodies three. 

And perhaps it was at about the same time that 
he wrote another pastoral, " Dispraise of a Courtly 
Life," in which the same two friends, as well as 
some others, are alluded to. 

Well was I while under shade, 
Oaten reeds me music made ; 
Striving with my mates in song, 
Mixing mirth our songs among. 
Greater was the shepherd's treasure 
Than this false, fine, courtly pleasure, 

Where, how many creatures be, 
So many puffed in mind I see J 
Like to Juno's birds of pride, 
Scarce each other can abide ; 
Friends like to black swans appearing, 
Sooner these than those in hearing. 

Therefore, Pan, if thou may'st be 
Made to listen unto me, 
Grant, I say, if silly man 
May make treaty to god Pan, 
That I without thy denying, 
May be still to thee relying, 




FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE. 

FROM AN ENGRAVING IN LODGE'S " PORTRAITS. 



1580] " Dispraise of a Courtly Life." 221 

Only for my two loves' sake 

In whose love I pleasure take. 

Only two do me delight 

With their ever-pleasing sight ; 

Of all men to thee retaining 

Grant me with those two remaining. 





CHAPTER XIII. 

AT COURT AGAIN. 
I$8o-l582. 




the Court, 
weary of it. 



AM glad," Hubert Languet 
wrote to Sidney from Ant- 
werp, on the 28th of October, 
1580, "that you have aban- 
doned your retirement and 
returned to the daylight of 
But I am afraid that you will soon get 
I see that its honours and dignities are 
given to age and wealth, rather than to virtue and 
prudence, so that you, who are yet young and with- 
out property of your own, will not easily reap any 
advantage. It will be dreary work for you, wasting 
the spring-time of your life amid the formalities and 
indolence of a Court ; for the occupations of courtiers 
do not often advance the public good, and are very 
seldom concerned with the better part of life." 
" I think there are not many men among you," 
added the plain-speaking Huguenot, " who would 



1580] Rettirn to London. 223 

prefer the welfare of the State to their own interests. 
I foresee many troubles, a future when your noble- 
men will be separated into factions, and at strife 
with one another, when the neighbouring nations will 
throw fuel on the fire which is to be kindled among 
you. Believe me, there are storms brewing which 
are not to be dispelled by the fallacies that have 
well-nigh driven all noble-mindedness and simplicity 
of thought out of the Christian world." 

Languet's forebodings were based especially on 
the prospect, still desired by some and dreaded by 
others, of a marriage between Queen Elizabeth and 
the Duke of Anjou. Sidney's re-instatement in the 
Queen's favour, like the Earl of Leicester's, appears 
to have been conditional on his no longer opposing 
the match. Both he and his uncle henceforward 
abstained from protests, and left the Queen to 
amuse herself in her own way with her ungainly and 
unworthy suitor ; perhaps, while quietly aiming at 
its overthrow, trusting to the chance of the project 
breaking down through its absurdity. 

Leicester was at this time, with Sidney as his 
associate, if not as his prompter, working secretly 
for the protection of the Prince of Orange and the 
few Dutch provinces loyal to the Protestant cause 
against the encroachments of the Spaniards under 
the new leadership of the Duke of Parma. There 
was even some talk of Leicester being nominated to 
the sovereignty over the Protestant provinces, in the 
north, which William at length, and much against 
his wishes, assumed in July, 1581. The Catholic 
provinces, in the south, had already for some time 



224 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

been under the ostensible headship of Anjou ; all, 
of course, being still claimed and lorded over by 
Parma, as King Philip's viceroy. Before William 
could be persuaded to take up the bold position 
from which modesty and excess of caution, certainly 
not cowardice, too long withheld him, he was anxious 
that it should be assigned to Leicester, whose capa- 
cities as a ruler were overestimated, and who was 
expected to bring into the contest the whole weight 
of English influence ; and it was now considered by 
both William and Leicester, and by their friends, 
that Anjou, contemptible as he was, and partly be- 
cause of his faults and weaknesses, might serve as a 
figurehead for such defiance of Spanish authority as 
the Dutch Protestants did not feel themselves strong 
enough to maintain without help from their Catholic 
fellow-countrymen. 

There is nothing to show what part Sidney took 
in these arrangements. From one of the few 
" Astrophel and Stella " sonnets, in which he touched 
on public events, it may be inferred that he regarded 
them with but languid interest and scant approval. 
In this sonnet he curiously sums up the chief political 
problems that perplexed and irritated others beside 
himself in the autumn of 1580 or soon after. He 
refers not only to the Dutch disasters of this year, 
which included the Spanish acquisition, by force or 
guile, of Maestricht, Mechlin, Groeningen, and other 
towns, but also to the threatened Ottoman crusade 
against Italy ; to the designs of Stephen Bathori, 
the newly elected King of Poland, against Russia; 
to the religious turmoils in France, where Henry of 



1582] Irksome Politics. 225 

Navarre was preparing to seize the crown and change 
his creed ; to the blundering efforts of Lord Grey 
of Wilton to carry out Sir Henry Sidney's policy in 
Ireland ; and to the new broils in Scotland between 
the partisans and enemies of the imprisoned Queen 
Mary. 

Whether the Turkish new moon minded be 

To fill his horns this year on Christian coast ? 

How Poles' right king means, without leave of host, 
To warm with ill-made fire cold Muscovy ? 
If French can yet three parts in one agree ? 

What now the Dutch in their full diets boast ? 

How Holland hearts — now so good towns be lost — 
Trust in the shade of pleasant Oiange-tree ? 
How Ulster likes of that same golden bit 

Wherewith my father once made it half-tame ? 
If in the Scotch Court be no weltering yet ? 

These questions busy wits to me do frame. 
I, cumbered with good manners, answer do, 
But know not how ; for still I think of you. 

Near the end of the long letter that Sidney wrote 
to his brother Robert from Leicester House on the 
1 8th of October, very soon after his return to Court, 
he said : " My eyes are almost closed up, overwatched 
with tedious business." What that business was — 
over and above the continuing of " The Arcadia," 
and other literary work, which he can scarcely have 
found tedious — we do not know. But he was evi- 
dently ill at ease. 

There must have been grim humour in an earlier 

letter to Robert, the purport of which appears from 

the lad's reference to it in writing to his father. 

" My brother," Robert reported from Prague on the 

15 



226 Sir Philip Sidney. n580 

ist of November, " wrote that, if there were any 
good wars, I should go to them ; but as yet I have 
heard of none." As a further reason against acting 
on Philip's advice, Robert pointed out that, even if 
there were any " good wars " to be gone to, his small 
allowance would not suffice to procure him safe and 
dignified equipment for the same. Robert had 
already been obliged to obtain help from Philip, 
with which to supplement his father's remittances. 
" For the money you have received," we read in the 
letter from Philip already quoted, " assure yourself — 
for it is true — there is nothing I spend so pleaseth 
me as that which is for you. If ever I have the 
ability, you will find it ; if not, yet shall not any 
brother living be better loved than you of me." 

The Sidney family, now as heretofore and here- 
after, was short of money. Sir Henry, who through 
all the years he was in Ireland, had been compelled 
to spend in the service of the Queen an average of 
^"60 a week, whereas his salary was only about ^30, 
at present found his allowance as Lord President of 
Wales quite insufficient for the duties he had to per- 
form. " I have only ,£20 a week to keep an honour- 
able house, and a 100 marks a year to bear foreign 
charges," we find him complaining from Ludlow 
Castle, in March, 1583 ; and the complaint was as 
well founded in the autumn of 1580. " What house 
I keep, I dare stand to the report of any indifferent 
man. True books of account shall be shown to you 
that I spend above ^30 a week. Here some may 
object that upon the same I keep my wife and her 
followers. True it is, she is now with me, and hath 



1582] Sir Henry s Poverty. 227 

been this half year ; but before not in many years. 
And if both she and I had our food and house-room 
free, as we have not, in conscience we have deserved 
it. For my part, I am not idle, but every day I work in 
my function ; and she, for her old service, and marks, 
yet remaining in her face, taken in the same " — that 
is, the marks of small-pox caught by Lady Sidney 
during her attendance on the Queen, which has been 
mentioned in its place — " meriteth her meat." 

In the same letter Sir Henry rightly took credit to 
himself for the real cause of his poverty. It was the 
custom of the day for most office-holders, and dis- 
pensers of favours and what was called justice, to 
eke out their scanty salaries by pocketing bribes; 
and Elizabeth expected that all her servants would 
do that. Sir Henry Sidney refused to follow the 
fashion. " I sell no justice," he proudly averred. 
" I trust you do not hear of any order taken by me 
ever reversed, nor my name or doings in any court 
— as courts there be whereto by appeal I might be 
called — ever brought in question. And if my mind 
were so base and corruptible as I would take money 
of the people whom I command for my labour, yet 
could they give me none or very little ; for the causes 
that come before me are causes of people mean, base, 
and very many beggars." Sir Henry felt the re- 
sponsibilities attached to his " great and high office " 
of Lord President of Wales, and did not choose that 
its honour or his own should be sullied by any un- 
worthy action. "Great it is," he said, "in that in 
some sort I govern the third part of this realm under 
her most excellent Majesty. High it is, for by that 



228 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

I have precedence of great personages, and far my 
betters. Happy it is for the people, and most happy 
for the commodity that I have by the authority of 
that place to do good every day — if I have grace — 
to one or other; wherein I confess I feel no small 
felicity. But, for any profit I gather by it, God and 
the people, seeing my manner of life, know it is not 
possible I should gather any." * 

Philip Sidney, having as keen and rare a sense of 
honour as his father, was as poor. He found it no 
easy matter to maintain a proper dignity at Court, 
even though Leicester House, his uncle's stately man- 
sion, and Baynard's Castle, the yet statelier residence 
of his brother-in-law, the Earl of Pembroke, were al- 
ways open to him, and thus enabled him to dispense 
with a dwelling-place of his own to which he might 
resort when he could be spared from the Queen's 
immediate presence, and had not time to go down to 
Penshurst or to Wilton. He was constrained to be on 
the look-out for such sinecures and odd sources of 
income — like the £60 a year he still drew from his 
living in Flintshire — as were plentiful in those days ; 
sources of which any one could take advantage with- 
out feeling himself disgraced. One such was the 
stewardship to the bishopric of Winchester, which 
had been a perquisite of the Earl of Leicester, and 
which his uncle assigned to him at some time near 
the end of i58o.f . Its money value is not recorded. 

* The long letter to Sir Francis Walsingham from which several 
other extracts have been made in earlier pages. 

f The document is among the MSS. in the possession of the Earl 
of Bath at Longleat. 



1582] As a Member of Parliament. 229 

Poor as he was, he contrived on New Year's Day 
of 1 58 1 to make three characteristic presents to the 
Queen, as though in token of his entire submission 
to her Majesty and his complete surrender of him- 
self to the royal keeping. One was a gold-headed 
whip, another was a golden chain, and the third was 
a heart of gold. 

We next meet with him in a new capacity. As 
knight of the shire, representing Kent, he served in 
Elizabeth's fourth Parliament during its third ses- 
sion, which lasted from the 16th of January till the 
1 8th of March, 1581. The previous sessions of this 
Parliament having been held in 1572 and 1576, when 
he was too young to sit, he must have been now 
elected for the first time, the elections in those days 
being merely nominations by local magnates 

This was not an exciting session, and we have but 
little trace of Sidney's share in it. On the 27th of 
January he was appointed on its most important 
committee, ordered to consider the perils arising to 
the State from the evil practices of the Papists, to 
suggest sharper laws for the restraining and bridling 
of the same, and to fix the amount of subsidy needed 
for preparing a force sufficient to defend the coun- 
try both by land and by sea. One of his colleagues 
on this committee was Peter Wentworth, the sturdy 
user and champion of free speech, who in 1576 had 
been lodged in the Tower for a month because, 
among other " libels," he had declared that " none 
is without fault — no, not our noble Queen, but has 
committed great and dangerous faults to herself"; 
and who in 1588 endured like punishment during 



230 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

three weeks because he dared to ask, with other 
dangerous questions, " whether this council be not a 
place for any member of the same, freely and with- 
out control, by bill or speech, to utter any of the 
griefs of this commonwealth ? whether there be any 
council that can make, add to, or diminish from 
the laws of the realm, but only this council of 
Parliament?" 

In the short session of 1581 no such disloyalty to 
the Queen was shown. The worst offence of Parlia- 
ment was in venturing to appoint a fast, which was 
to be optional to the public but compulsory on its 
own members ; and for thus encroaching on the 
Queen's prerogative, as sole ruler in ecclesiastical 
and religious affairs, the whole House had to make 
humble apology. On the other hand, it severely 
punished one of its number, Arthur Hall, representa- 
tive of Grantham, who, angry at some proceedings 
of the previous session, had published a book de- 
nouncing the Commons as a drunken body, given up 
to works of darkness. Hall, vainly offering to apolo- 
gise, was expelled the House, fined 500 marks, and 
sent to the Tower for six months. 

The committee on the evils of Papistry, of which 
Sidney was a member, recommended stringent meas- 
ures, afterwards embodied in an act of Parliament, 
by which any one who apostatised to the Church of 
Rome, or encouraged others to do so, was held 
guilty of treason, any one who said mass was to be 
subjected to a year's imprisonment and a fine of 200 
marks, any one present at such a service was ren- 
dered liable to half these punishments, and ^20 a 



1582] As a Member of Parliament, 231 

month was fixed as the penalty for staying away 
from church. 

Equally fierce legislation followed on the report 
of another committee of which Sidney was a mem- 
ber. Any one convicted of uttering slanderous 
words, or like sedition, against the Queen's Majesty 
was, for a first offence, to be set in the pillory and to 
lose his ears, and, for a second offence, to be hanged 
as a felon. Sidney's opinions and actions in Parlia- 
ment evidently agreed with those of the majority of 
his colleagues, whose Puritanism had by this time 
begun to assert itself in plain terms. 

A letter which he wrote from Baynard's Castle, 
on the 10th of April, shows that he was then inter- 
esting himself in the affairs of his " cousin Fulke," 
who in 1577 obtained the reversion of a lucrative 
office as Clerk of the Signet to the Council in Wales, 
and who seems at this time, or as soon as he was 
free from livelier occupations at Court, to have 
entered upon it. 

On the 1 6th of April there arrived at Dover a 
splendid embassage from the King of France, sent 
over to forward the arrangements for Queen Eliza- 
beth's marriage with his brother, the Duke of Anjou. 
Throughout the next few weeks the visitors were 
courteously and sumptuously entertained by Queen 
Elizabeth and all her statesmen and courtiers. Lord 
Burghley, the Earls of Sussex, Leicester, Bedford, 
and Lincoln, Sir Francis Walsingham, and Sir Chris- 
topher Hatton were commissioned to discuss with 
them the terms of the proposed wedding contract ; 
and in the meanwhile all sorts of festivities were 



232 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

provided. In these Philip Sidney and Fulke Gre- 
ville took their part. 

There was plenty of eating and drinking, with 
profusion of other entertainments ; but the most 
attractive of all was the tournament held in the 
Whitehall tilt-yard, at which the new Earl of Arun- 
del, Lord Windsor, Mr. Philip Sidney, and Mr. Fulke 
Greville, styling themselves the Four Foster Children 
of Desire, essayed to win by force of arms the For- 
tress of Perfect Beauty, the fancied abode of Queen 
Elizabeth, which, by help of wood and canvas and 
paint, had been erected on an artificial mound facing 
the Queen's window at Whitehall. This perform- 
ance had been planned to take place on Sunday, the 
16th of April ; but it had to be postponed for the 
arrival of the French visitors, and other delays fol- 
lowed. It was not till Whit-Monday, the 15th of 
May, that all was ready for the exploit. 

On the morning of that day the Four entered the 
tilt-yard. First came the Earl of Arundel, successor 
to the nobleman of the same name who had been 
suspected of a plot to murder the Earl of Leicester, 
and who had died in 1580. He was followed by 
Lord Windsor ; each of these two, who took prece- 
dence by virtue of their rank arid wealth, being 
gorgeously clad and largely attended. Next arrived 
Mr. Philip Sidney, less magnificent, but certainly 
splendid enough. Part of his armour was blue, and 
the rest of graven gold. Besides his own charger 
he had four spare horses, richly caparisoned, ridden 
by as many pages. In his train were thirty gentle- 
men and yeomen, and four trumpeters, all arrayed 




THE GATE AT WHITEHALL. 

SAID TO HAVE BEEN DESIGNED BY HOLBEIN 

From an engraving by G. Vertue. 



1582] A Tournament at Whitehall. 233 

in cassock coats, Venetian hose of yellow velvet, 
adorned with silver lace, yellow caps with silver 
bands and white feathers, and white buskins. The 
pages were similarly dressed, but with gold lace and 
gold bands, instead of silver, and some other special 
ornaments. On the coat of each attendant was a 
silver band, passing like a scarf over the shoulder 
and under the arm, and showing, in both front and 
rear, Sidney's motto, Sic nos non nobis. Last rode 
Mr. Fulke Greville, wearing gilt armour ; also with 
four pages on spare horses, four trumpeters, and 
twenty others, all decked in tawny taffeta, decorated 
with yellow sarcenet and gold hoops and buttons, 
in tawny taffeta hats, and in yellow worsted stock- 
ings. The whole company formed a little army, 
numbering in all more than four hundred men. 

Speeches were made and alarms were sounded. 
The Queen was called upon to yield herself and her 
Fortress of Perfect Beauty to her all-conquering 
admirers. Then the tournament followed, the Four 
having challenged any and all who would defend the 
Fortress against their onslaught. The challengers 
marched up and down the yard, and at length pro- 
ceeded to run tilt, each one in his turn, and each 
running six courses, against any who came to oppose 
them. Of opponents there were more than twenty, 
each with his small regiment of mimic warriors. Mr. 
Henry Grey, Sir Thomas Perrot, Mr. Anthony 
Cooke, Mr. Thomas Ratcliffe, Mr. Ralph Bowes, 
four sons of Sir Francis Knollys, and a dozen others 
presented themselves. It was an idle vanity on 
the part of the Four to propose resistance to so 



234 Si r Philip Sidney. [1580- 

many, and, as might have been expected, before 
nightfall they were seriously discomfited. 

Next day, being Whit-Tuesday, they entered the 
yard in a chariot, looking wearied and already half 
overcome. More speeches were delivered, but in a 
different tone. " No confidence in themselves," it 
was now said, " O most unmatched Princess, before 
whom envy dies, wanting nearness of comparison 
to entertain it, and admiration is expressed, finding 
its scope void of conceivable limit, — no confidence 
in themselves, nor any slight regarding the force of 
your valiant knights, hath encouraged the Foster 
Children of Desire to make this day an inheritor of 
yesterday's action. They are violently borne whither 
Desire draweth, although they must confess (alas, 
that yesterday's brave onslaught should come to 
such a confession !) that they are not greatly compa- 
nied with Hope, the common supplier of Desire's 
army ; so as now, from summoning this castle to 
yield, they are fallen lowly to beseech you to vouch- 
safe your eyes out of that impregnable Fortress to 
behold what will fall out between them and your 
famous knights. Whence, though they be so over- 
passed with others' valour that already they could 
scarcely have been able to come hither if the chariot 
of Desire had not carried them, yet will they make 
this whole assembly witness so far their will that 
sooner their souls shall leave their bodies than Desire 
shall leave their souls." 

Then they returned to the tourney, shivering so 
many swords and dealing so many lusty blows that, 
says one who stood by, it seemed as though the 



1582] A Tournament at Whitehall. 235 

Greeks were alive again and the Trojan war renewed. 
No party was spared, adds our informant, no estate 
excepted, but each knight strove to be the victor, at 
any rate in the favouring eye of his mistress — for 
each had one fair lady looking on, from whom he 
hoped for guerdon, however the Queen herself 
might reward him. 

Towards evening the martial game ended. A 
boy, wearing ash-coloured garments in token of sub- 
mission, and with an olive-branch in his hand, 
approached her Majesty and humbly tendered an 
avowal that the Four Foster Children of Desire had 
been utterly defeated in their essay against the 
Fortress of Perfect Beauty. But her Majesty gra- 
ciously declared that thanks and praise were due to 
all, to the vanquished no less than to the victors, for 
the pleasant sport they had provided and for the 
great skill they had shown. 

What interest Philip Sidney took in warlike ex- 
ercises, regarding them as training for real work, 
appears not only from his numerous descriptions of 
such affairs in " The Arcadia," but also from one of 
his letters to his brother Robert. " When you play 
at weapons," he said, " I would have you get thick 
caps and brasers and play out your play lustily, for 
indeed tricks and dalliances are nothing in earnest, 
for the time of one and the other greatly differs. 
And use as well the blows as the thrust. It is good 
in itself, and, besides, exerciseth your breath and 
strength, and it will make you a strong man at the 
tourney < and barriers. First, in any case, practice 
the single-sword, and then with the dagger. Let 



236 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

no day pass without an hour or two such exer- 
cise." 

Worsted, as one of the Four Foster Children of 
Desire, in the battle for possession of the Fortress 
of Perfect Beauty on the 15th and 16th of May, 
Sidney may have triumphed in one or more of 
the separate encounters that occupied him on the 
second of the two days. Or it may have been, and 
probably it was, after some other contest of a like 
kind, during the weeks given up by the English 
Court to the entertainment of the French ambassa- 
dors, that he wrote the following sonnet ; 

Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance 

Guided so well that I obtained the prize, 

Both in the judgment of the English eyes 
And of some sent from that sweet enemy France, 
Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance, 

Town folks my strength, a daintier judge applies 

His praise to sleight which from good use doth rise, 
Some lucky wits impute it but to chance, 
Others, because of both sides I do take 

My blood from them who did excel in this, 
Think Nature me a man of arms did make. 

How far they shot awry ! The true cause is, 
Stella looked on, and from her heavenly face 
Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race. 

This sonnet is perhaps more autobiographically 
accurate than any of the others in " Astrophel and 
Stella." We may accept as a precise record of fact 
Sidney's statement that one day while the French 
ambassadors were in London he took the prize in 
the tilt-yard and pleased himself by imagining that 
his success was due, not to his skill or strength, to 



1582] " Stella Looked on" 237 

training or to chance, but to the ardour roused by 
Stella's smile. By the courtly exaggeration in which 
he here indulged we can measure the significance of 
other sonnets containing far more extravagance of 
phrase and far more affectation of earnestness. We 
may, for instance, discern its affectation, and admire 
its grace, without accepting as serious the sonnet 
that comes next in the printed order, and looks as 
though it was written quickly after the one just 
quoted, by way of further poetical tribute to the 
potency of Stella's glance. 

O eyes, which do the spheres of beauty move, 

Whose beams be joys, whose, joys all virtues be, 
Who, while they make love conquer, conquer love, 

The schools where Venus hath learnt chastity ! 
O eyes, whose humble looks most glorious prove, 

Only-loved tyrants, just in cruelty ! 
Do not, O do not, from poor me remove ; 

Keep still my zenith ; ever shine on me ! 
For though I never see them but straightways 

My life forgets to nourish languished sprites, 
Yet still on me, O eyes, dart down your rays ! 

And if from majesty of sacred lights, 
Oppressing mortal sense, my death proceed, 
Wracks triumphs be which love, high-set, doth breed. 

Wherever Lady Penelope Devereux may usually 
have been up to the time of her mother's marriage 
with the Earl of Leicester, or its discovery, whether 
with the Countess of Essex or under other guardian- 
ship, she appears afterwards to have been taken care 
of by the Earl of Huntingdon, whose wife was a 
sister of Lady Sidney, who had been for some time 
custodian of Mary Queen of Scots, and who since 



238 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

1572 had been President of the North and Lord 
Lieutenant of Northumberland and other counties. 

On the 10th of March, 1581, this Earl of Hunting- 
don wrote from Newcastle to Lord Burghley in 
terms implying that Lady Penelope Devereux and 
her sister Dorothy had been for some while under 
his charge and away from the Court. " Her 
Majesty," he said, " was pleased the last year to 
give me leave, at times convenient, to put her in 
mind of these young ladies." He now desired her 
Majesty to be put in mind of them, because the son 
of Lord Chancellor Rich had lately died. The 
second Lord Rich had been a friend of the first Earl 
of Essex, one of his colleagues in Ireland, and had 
accompanied the Earl of Lincoln when the latter 
went to Paris in 1572, taking young Philip Sidney 
with him. " Hearing," wrote the Earl of Hunting- 
don in the letter to Lord Burghley, " that God hath 
taken to His mercy my Lord Rich, who hath left as 
his heir a proper gentleman, and one in years very 
fit for my Lady Penelope Devereux, if with the 
favour and liking of her Majesty the matter might 
be brought to pass, and because I know your lord- 
ship's good affection to their father gone, and also 
your favour to his children, I am bold to pray your 
furtherance in this matter, which may, I think, by 
your good means, be brought to such a pass as I 
desire. I have also written to Mr. Secretary Wal- 
singham herein." 

This letter makes it plain that in March, 1 581, the 
Earl of Huntingdon was scheming the marriage of 
Lady Penelope to the " proper gentleman," who 



1582] Lady Penelope Devereuxs Marriage. 239 

had just inherited a title, and wealth to match. The 
scheme, by whomsoever countenanced and ordered, 
was successful. When Stella became Lady Rich is 
not recorded ; but it was probably in the summer or 
autumn of 1 58 1 , most likely very soon after the 
jousting in Whitehall tilt-yard at which " Stella 
looked on," and by her looking won Sidney's 
thanks for having helped him to his prize. It 
was undoubtedly a very unfortunate and unhappy 
marriage. 

Though it carries the story on to a date subsequent 
to Sidney's death, a curious statement made in 1605 by 
Lady Rich's second husband, the Earl of Devonshire, 
must here be quoted. No names are mentioned in 
it ; but they can be easily supplied. " A lady of great 
birth and virtue, being in the power of her friends," 
wrote the Earl of Devonshire, " was by them mar- 
ried against her will unto one against whom she did 
protest at the very solemnity, and ever after; be- 
tween whom from the first day there ensued con- 
tinual discord, although the same fear that forced her 
to marry constrained her to live with him. Instead 
of a comforter, he did strive in all things to torment 
her, and by fear and fraud did practise to deceive 
her of her dowry. And, though he forebare to 
offer her any open wrong, restrained with the awe 
of her brother's powerfulness " — the brother being 
Robert, the second Earl of Essex, — " yet, as he had 
not in long time before in the chiefest duty of a 
husband used her as his wife, so presently after his " 
— that is, her brother's — " death, he did put her to a 
stipend, and utterly abandoned her, without pre- 



240 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

tence of any cause but his own desire to live with- 
out her." 

Much fiercer words than the Earl of Devonshire 
used in prose about Lord Rich four and twenty years 
after the marriage were used in verse by Sidney 
within a short time of the event. Thus he wrote : 

Rich fools there be, whose base and filthy heart 

Lies hatching still the goods wherein they flow, 
And, damning their own selves to Tantal's smart, 

(Wealth breeding want), more blest, more wretched grow. 
Yet to those fools Heaven doth such wit impart 

As what their hands do hold their heads do know, 
And, knowing, love, and, loving, lay apart 

As sacred things, far from all dangers' show. 
But that rich fool who, by blind Fortune's lot, 

The richest gem of love and life enjoys, 
And can with foul abuse such beauties blot — 

Let him, deprived of sweet but unfelt joys, 
Exiled for aye from those high treasures which 
He knows not, grow in only folly rich. 

More poetry and neater punning were in another 
of Sidney's sonnets. 

My mouth doth water and my breast doth swell, 
My tongue doth itch, my thoughts in labour be. 
Listen then, lordlings, with good care to me, 

For of my life I must a riddle tell. 

Towards Aurora's Court a nymph doth dwell, 
Rich in all beauties which man's eye can see, 
Beauties so far from reach in words that we 

Abuse her praise, saying she doth excel ; 

Rich in the treasure of deserved renown ; 
Rich in the riches of a royal heart ; 

Rich in those gifts which give the eternal crown ; 
Who, though most rich in these and every part 

Which makes the patents of true worldly bliss, 

Hath no misfortune but that Rich she is. 



1582] Lady Penelope Devereuxs Marriage. 241 

Many of the sonnets in " Astrophel and Stella " 
have been supposed to reveal deeper feeling and to 
express higher admiration than those just quoted. If 
we are to take them literally, we must believe that, 
as soon as she was married to another, Sidney 
was seized with mad passion for the young lady 
whom he had known and liked in her childhood 
and afterwards, whom six years earlier it had been 
expected that he would marry in due course, and of 
whom — shortly before her marriage, but apparently 
after her betrothal, though perhaps that was not 
then known to him — he had gallantly declared that 
her " heavenly face sent forth the beams " that fired 
and lighted him to triumph in the tilt-yard. More 
than that, if we are to interpret verbally some of 
the other sonnets and some of the songs that accom- 
pany them, we must believe, not only that Sidney 
was filled with rage against Stella's husband and 
bitter self-reproach for having failed to make her his 
own bride, but that he straightway laid desperate 
siege to her heart and only abstained from physical 
violence in his efforts to injure her. 

All this we may well refuse to believe. Such as- 
sumptions are wholly inconsistent with everything 
else that we know about Sidney's character and tem- 
perament. And we need not discredit them on that 
ground alone ; ground which, it must be admitted, 
is too slippery to be trusted to by itself. 

Following the sentences we have read from the 

Earl of Devonshire's report as to Lady Rich's un- 

happiness in her married life, and the treatment she 

received from her husband, are these others : " And 
16 



242 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580 " 

after he " — that is, Lord Rich — " had not for the space 
of twelve years enjoyed her, he did, by persuasions 
and threatenings, move her to consent unto a di- 
vorce, and to confess a fault with a nameless stranger ; 
without the which such a divorce as he desired 
could not, by the laws in practice, proceed. Where- 
upon, to give a form to that separation which was 
long before in substance made, she was content to 
subscribe to a confession of his and her own coun- 
sel's making." That was in 1604 or 1605, and the 
"nameless stranger" was the Earl of Devonshire 
himself, who was the father of several of her children 
before, having been divorced from Lord Rich, she 
was able to be legally united to her second husband. 
If it is true that Lord Rich had begun to persecute 
her immediately after their marriage, although he 
then and for some time " constrained her to live 
with him," that he separated from her in or about 
1592, and that in 1601 he " utterly abandoned her 
without pretence of any cause," having still to wait 
three years or more before he could find grounds 
for a divorce, we may be quite sure that he would 
have obtained the divorce at a much earlier date 
had evidence been procurable. And such evidence 
would not have been far to seek if we are to put a 
literal interpretation on "Astrophel and Stella." 
The poems, it is true, were not printed until 1591, 
nearly five years after Sidney's death ; but they 
were freely handed about in manuscript during his 
lifetime. Neither he nor his friends made any secret 
of them. They furnished his chief title to be hon- 
oured as a poet among his contemporaries. As 



1582] Sidney and Lady Rich. 243 

fanciful poems they were regarded by those con- 
temporaries. Had they been regarded as auto- 
biographical statements, yet more as impeachments 
of Lady Rich, they would certainly have provided 
the jealous and cruel husband with materials for the 
discovery of facts that, if they were facts, are clearly 
hinted at in the poems. 

Another point should be mentioned. There are 
many passages in " Astrophel and Stella " which, in 
so far as they refer, even in fun or jest, to the mar- 
ried " nymph " who, rich in all beauties of mind and 
heart as well as of body, " hath no misfortune but 
that Rich she is," are hardly in good taste when 
judged by modern standards. But there was nothing 
that could be considered in the least indelicate by 
those who first read them, provided they were read 
simply as inventions, designed to compliment in fic- 
titious terms the lady whom, both before and after 
marriage, Sidney elected to be his patroness in the 
tilt-yard, for whom he evidently had honest liking, 
and whose sufferings as a wife may well have aroused 
in him tender sympathy and respectful homage. On 
the other hand, had Lady Rich been to him the 
object of a coarse passion, one on whom he desired to 
force other miseries besides those which her husband 
caused her, it is not credible that he would have gone 
out of his way to insult her by name in verses for his 
friends to make merry over. We must either acquit 
him of any serious intent in his sonnets, or we must 
accuse him of wantonly unchivalrous behaviour both 
in shamelessly exposing his own weaknesses and in 
meanly traducing the lady whom he affected to 



244 Sir Phihp Sidney. LI 580- 

honour. The pleasanter of these alternatives leaves 
unexplained some passages in " Astrophel and 
Stella" ; but the other raises far greater difficulties. 
Sidney's friends evidently took the poems as 
works of fancy, with no greater basis of fact than 
served for the building thereon of an imaginative 
superstructure. Spenser declared that 

Stella the fair, the fairest star in sky, 

As fair as Venus or the fairest fair 
(A fairer star saw never living eye), 

Shot her sharp pointed beams through purest air : 
Her he did love, her he alone did honour ; 
His thoughts, his rhymes, his songs, were all upon her. 

To her he vowed the service of his days ; 

On her he spent the riches of his wit ; 
For her he made hymns of immortal praise ; 

Of only her he sang, he thought, he writ ; 
Her, and but her, of love he worthy deemed ; 
For all the rest but little he esteemed. 

How much sober history we are to find in that 
record may be inferred from Spenser's later verse 
which says that Stella, instead of continuing for 
nearly twenty years longer to be Lady Rich and 
ending her days as Countess of Devonshire, tore 
herself in pieces over the dying body of Astrophel, 
and only lived long enough to see him die : 

Which when she saw she stayed not a whit, 
But after him did make untimely haste. 

Forthwith her ghost out of her corpse did flit, 
And followed her mate like turtle chaste, 

To prove that death their hearts cannot divide 

Which, living, were in love so firmly tied. 



1582] Sidney and Lady Rich. 245 

If we would look for autobiographic truth in any 
part of " Astrophel and Stella," we must seek it in 
sonnets like this, premising that even here it was 
only in excess of compliment and with the enthusi- 
asm of a poet that Sidney declared " Stella's eyes 
and Stella's heart " to be the all-absorbing subjects of 
his thoughts : 

The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness 

Bewray itself in my long-settled eyes, 

Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise, 
With idle pains and missing aim do guess. 
Some, that know how my spring I did address, 

Deem that my muse some fruit of knowledge plies ; 

Others, because the prince my service tries, 
Think that I think State errors to redress ; 
But harder judges judge ambition's rage 

(Scourge of itself, still climbing slippery place) 
Holds my young brain captived in golden cage. 

O fools, or overwise ! Alas, the race 
Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start 
But only Stella's eyes and Stella's heart. 

And if we would obtain from Spenser some true 
insight into Sidney's bearing at Court, at a time 
when Stella was able, in spite of all her woes, to 
shine and smile in it, and to lessen for him the irk- 
someness of waiting for better work to do than he 
could find in setting a brave example to those around 
him, we must turn to " Mother Hubbard's Tale." 
There, in a sketch clearly intended as a portrait of 
his friend, Spenser tells how the ape in man's attire, 
seeking his fortune at Court, won favour from many 
by his tricks and quips, his scoffings and slanders, 
but had only scorn and reproof from " the rightful 
courtier." 



246 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

For, though the vulgar yield an open ear, 

And common courtiers love to jibe and flear 

At everything which they hear spoken ill, 

And the best speeches with ill meaning spill, 

Yet the brave courtier, in whose beauteous thought 

Regard of honour harbours more than aught, 

Doth loathe such base condition, to backbite 

Any's good name for envy or despite. 

He stands on terms of honourable mind, 

Ne will be carried with the common wind 

Of Courts' inconstant mutability, 

Ne after every tattling fable fly, 

But hears and sees the follies of the rest 

And thereof gathers for himself the best. 

Ne will not creep nor crouch with feigned face, 

But walks upright with comely, steadfast pace, 

And unto all doth yield due courtesy — 

But not with kissed hand below the knee, 

As that same apish crew is wont to do ; 

For he disdains himself to embase thereto. 

He hates foul leasings and vile flattery — 

Two filthy blots in noble gentery ; 

And loathful idleness he doth detest, 

The canker-worm of every gentle breast : 

The which to banish, with fair exercise 

Of knightly feats, he daily doth devise. . . . 

For all his mind on honour fixed is, 

To which he levels all his purposes, 

And in his prince's service spends his days, 

Not so much for to gain, or for to raise 

Himself to high degree, as for his grace, 

And in his liking to win worthy place. 

Though it may be somewhat too flattering, Spen- 
ser's sketch vividly sets before us Sidney's ideals 
and occupations at Court in 158 1 and the few years 
before and after. He was anxious for more impor- 
tant work than fell to him ; but he bore himself as 



1582] "The Rightful Courtier." 247 

well as he could among the frivolous surroundings in 
which he was constrained to move, and to which his 
presence added some dignity and grace. " He was 
not only an excellent wit," says Aubrey in the gossip 
that tells almost all we know, except from portraits, 
about Sidney's personal appearance, " but extremely 
beautiful. He much resembled his sister; but his 
hair was not red, but a little inclining — namely, a 
dark amber colour. If I were to find a fault in it, 
methinks 't is not masculine enough ; yet he was a 
person of great courage." 

For diversion we may suppose that in 1 581 Sidney 
was writing part of " The Arcadia," and many if not 
all of the songs and sonnets in " Astrophel and 
Stella." From the latter work one other quota- 
tion must be made here, as it throws a little light 
on one aspect of the writer's deportment at Court, 
and strengthens the inference that his worship of 
Stella, though there may have been in it some of the 
poetic passion that stirred Dante and Petrarch and 
scores of humbler sonnet writers, was more playful 
than real. Had he " loved indeed," he would, on 
his own showing, have " quaked to say he loved," 
sorting rather with the " dumb swans " than with 
the " chattering pies." 

Because I breathe not love to every one, 

Nor do not use set colours for to wear, 

Nor nourish special locks of vowed hair, 
Nor give each speech a full point of a groan, 
The courtly nymphs, acquainted with the moan 

Of them which in their lips Love's standard bear, 

" What, he ! " say they of me ; " now I dare swear 
He cannot love ; no, no, let him alone." 



248 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580 

And think so still, so Stella know my mind ! 

Profess, indeed, I do not Cupid's art ; 
But you, fair maids, at length this truth shall find, 

That his right badge is worn but in the heart. 
Dumb swans, not chattering pies, do lovers prove ; 
They love indeed who quake to say they love. 

There was at least one " special lock of vowed 
hair," that Sidney's courtly obligations made him 
preserve. A tress, soft and bright, and of a light 
brown colour, approaching to red, wrapped up in 
paper and thus labelled, is still preserved at Wil- 
ton : " This lock of Queen Elizabeth's own hair was 
presented to Sir Philip Sidney by her Majesty's own 
fair hands ; on which he made these verses and gave 
them to the Queen on his bended knee : 

" Her inward worth all outward show transcends, 
Envy her merit with regret commends ; 
Like sparkling gems, her virtue draws the sight, 
And in her conduct she is always bright. 
When she imparts her thoughts, her words have force, 
And sense and wisdom flow in sweet discourse." * 

Of more substantial gifts than locks of hair Eliza- 
beth was chary. Sidney had to wait long before any 
important public duties were assigned to him, and in 
the meantime he found the expenses of his forced 
attendance at Court heavier than he could easily 
meet. 

In the autumn of 1581 he was anxious to obtain, 
if not lucrative employment, a share of the property 

* The date here given, 1573, is impossible, as Sidney was then a 
lad of eighteen travelling abroad. The year 1583 would be more 
likely. 



1582] Royal Favours. 249 

seized from Papists and freely distributed by the 
Queen among such highly favoured courtiers as the 
Earl of Leicester. " Yesterday," he wrote to Lord 
Burghley on the 10th of October, " her Majesty, at 
my taking leave, said, against that I came up again, 
she would take some order for care of me. My suit 
is for ;£ioo a year in impropriations." There is no 
evidence that Burghley endorsed the suit, but it was 
supported by Sir Christopher Hatton and the Earl 
of Leicester. In December Hatton obtained Queen 
Elizabeth's promise that to Sidney should be as- 
signed a " forfeiture of Papists' goods " ; and it 
was probably to the same transaction that Sidney 
referred in a letter written at this time to his uncle, 
asking his help towards obtaining at least .£3,000 
from penalties on Papists. Less, he said, in this let- 
ter, would not suit him. *' Truly I like not their 
persons, and much worse their religion ; but I think 
my fortune very hard that my fortune must be built 
on other men's punishments." * Sidney apparently 
got what he wanted, as eleven days later he wrote 
to thank his uncle for his care of him. It may have 
been about this time, too, that the Queen granted 
him a sinecure, worth ^120 a year, which was con- 
ferred on George Herbert, the poet, forty years 
afterwards. 

That Sidney was now on good terms with the 
Queen, though he spent the Christmas-time of 1 53 1 
with his sister at Wilton instead of at Court, may be 
inferred from a short letter which he addressed to 



* This letter and the one next cited are among the MSS. in the 
possession of Mr. Cottrell-Dormer, at Rousham, near Oxford. 



250 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

her Majesty on the 10th of November, and which 
also implies that he was just now devising some 
scheme of secret writing for State use. " Most gra- 
cious sovereign," he wrote from Greenwich : " This 
rude piece of paper shall presume, because of your 
Majesty's commandment, most humbly to present 
such a cypher as a little leisure could afford me. If 
there come any matter to my knowledge, the import- 
ance whereof shall deserve to be so marked, I will 
not fail, since your pleasure is my only boldness, to 
your own hands to recommend it. In the mean- 
time, I beseech your Majesty will vouchsafe to read 
my heart in the course of my life ; and, though itself 
be but of mean worth, yet to esteem it like a poor 
house well set. I most lowly kiss your hands, and 
pray to God your enemies may then only have peace 
when they are weary of knowing your force." 

Some of Elizabeth's enemies were now approach- 
ing her in the guise of friends. The negotiations for 
her marriage to the Duke of Anjou were still pro- 
ceeding, but, happily, sufficient obstacles were raised 
to prevent it. However willing or unwilling the 
elderly queen may have been to take to herself 
a young husband, she was not unmindful of her 
duty to her country and to the Protestant cause, of 
which, along with the brave little knot of patriots in 
the Netherlands, England was the champion. As 
one of the conditions of her marrying the brother 
of King Henry of France, she wanted the latter to 
join her in a league against Spain, and to this intent 
in July she sent Sir Francis Walsingham to Paris, 
where three or four months were wasted by the am- 
bassador in useless controversv and efforts to recon- 



1582] The Duke of Anjou in London. 251 

cile the contradictory instructions of his mistress. 
" When her Majesty is pressed to the marriage/' 
Walsingham said in a letter to Burghley, " then she 
seemeth to affect a league ; and when the league is 
yielded to, then she liketh better a marriage ; and 
when thereupon she is moved to assent to marriage, 
then she hath recourse to the league ; and when the 
motion for the league or any request for money is 
made, then her Majesty returneth to the marriage." 

Affairs being in this fluctuating condition, the 
Duke of Anjou thought it well to come and plead 
his own cause. He reached London on the 1st of 
November, and was gaily entertained during three 
months. Sidney appears not to have taken much 
part in the entertainments. As has been noted, he 
was at Wilton at Christmas, and there was no inter- 
change of New Year's gifts between him and the 
Queen. But he was at Whitehall on the 1st of Feb- 
ruary, 1582, when Anjou quitted London, the Queen 
herself riding with him as far as Canterbury, and 
several of her chief courtiers escorting him all the 
way to Antwerp. 

The Earl of Leicester, Lord Hunsdon, and Lord 
Howard took the lead in this party, and with them 
were Mr. Philip Sidney, Mr. Walter Raleigh, Mr. 
Fulke Greville, Mr. Edward Dyer, and a host of 
others. They were met at Flushing by Prince Wil- 
liam of Orange, and deputies from all the neighbour- 
ing cities, who came to welcome the bridegroom-elect 
of the English Queen and the man who was expected 
to prove himself the saviour of the Netherlands. 

Reaching Antwerp on the 19th of February, the 
son of Catherine de'Medici, the wretch of whom his 



252 Sir Philip Sidney. Li 580- 

sister, Queen Margaret of Navarre, had said that, 
" if fraud and cruelty were banished from the earth, 
there was in him sufficient stock from which it could 
be replenished," became the hero in shows of unex- 
ampled splendour. Being led to a spacious theatre, 
and there elected Duke of Brabant, Anjou gave a 
pledge that he would deliver the Low Country States 
from the oppression and tyranny of the Spaniards, 
and would rule them according to their customary 
laws and privileges. He then took the prescribed 
oaths, the Prince of Orange putting on him the 
crimson mantle and crimson bonnet, tokens of the 
sacredness of his office ; and after that other titles 
and honours were conferred. These things done, 
the company passed from the theatre to the open 
street. There they met a damsel personating the 
Maid of Antwerp, who placed the keys of the town 
at his feet. On her right hand walked another maid 
representing Religion, on her left was one typifying 
Justice. These were heralded by Concord, with 
Wisdom on the one side and Force on the other. 
Then there were some Scriptural shows. Samuel 
taking the kingdom from Saul and giving it to 
David symbolised the transference of the States 
from the wicked rule of Spain to the wise, strong 
government of the Duke of Anjou and Brabant. In 
the intimacy of David and Jonathan was found illus- 
tration of the alliance between the Duke and Queen 
Elizabeth. And there were numberless other spec- 
tacles, in which metaphorical nymphs and naked men 
and gorgeously apparelled dames took part. 

But it all came to an end. The thunder of ap- 
plause died out, the glitter of compliment faded 



1582] A Visit to Antwerp. 253 

away ; and presently the Duke of Anjou gave to all 
the world, even to Queen Elizabeth, overwhelming 
proof that, if he had more folly than comported with 
the mock dignity of a proper knave, he was far too 
knavish to pass for a mere fool. 

This happened in Sidney's lifetime, and therefore 
soon enough for him to hear every one acknowledge 
the wisdom of his former strictures upon Anjou. 
But perhaps, even now, in the midst of the splen- 
dours he was witnessing he saw abundant confirma- 
tion of his view. 

Sidney's good friend Hubert Languet had died in 
Antwerp on the 30th of September, 1 58 1, tenderly 
nursed by the wife of Philip du Plessis-Mornay, to 
whom he said, as in less solemn tones he had often 
said before to Sidney and others, that he had thus 
far struggled on through life in the hope of seeing, 
and even helping on, a reformation of which the 
world had grievous need ; but now that he saw how 
the nations of Europe were steadily growing worse, 
he was only too glad to leave it. 

Sometimes, while in attendance on the Duke of 
Anjou in Antwerp, Sidney must have turned aside 
from the false gaiety and have paused sadly by the 
grave of his old friend, not yet five months dead — 
the friend whom he praised in " The Arcadia " 

For clerkly rede and hating what is naught, 

For faithful heart, clean hands and mouth as true, 

and of whom he testified that 

With his sweet skill my skill-less youth he drew 
To have a feeling taste of Him that sits 
Beyond the heavens, far more beyond our wits. 





CHAPTER XIV. 

IN THE WORLD OF LETTERS. 
I 580-I 583. 

)^^^^^^^ONE of Sidney's writings were 
^r^^^k |l( printed until after his death, 

pM ^k tp and we have no precise record 

^B --— Jr ft °f tne ^ at:e at which any, - sav e 
J) ^2T i UTli e Lady of May," were 
composed. But, as during the 
last three years of his life he 
was busiest in other ways, we may assume that he 
did not then write much. We may also assume that 
before 1579 his literary exercises were merely tenta- 
tive and preliminary ; the most notable being " The 
Lady of May," avowedly prepared for Queen Eliza- 
beth's entertainment early in the summer of 1578. 
Later in the same summer he was in close intercourse 
with Gabriel Harvey, and next year he saw much 
of Harvey's friend, Edmund Spenser, and of others 
who gathered round him in the Areopagus. It is 
probable that, with the exception of the translations 
in which he had a hand and of some stray poems, all 

254 



1580] Sidney as an Author. 255 

the work that has given him an honourable place in 
the world of letters was produced within the three 
years or so that ensued. Before this period he had 
become honourably known as the associate and 
helper — the patron, in the best sense of the term — 
of other men of letters ; and he so continued to the 
end. But his own literary career, and the three / 
books on which his fame as an author rests, " The I 
Defence of Poesy," " The Countess of Pembroke's/ 
Arcadia," and "Astrophel and Stella," may be dateoj 
between 1580 and 1583 ; that is, between the twenty-* 
sixth and twenty-ninth years of his short life. 

In this interval, feeling himself a full-grown man, 
fit for greater enterprises in the service of the State 
than were permitted, and eager for pursuits which he 
deemed more important and more incumbent on 
him, Sidney found some vent for his restless energy 
in the use of the pen. But it must be understood and 
borne in mind that literature was never more than a 
pleasjmJjDastime^to him. In each of his three books 
he claimed to be a poet, in the wider meaning of 
the term then in vogue ; and in each he gave signal 
and diverse proof of his skill. But in thejworld of 
letters he moved only as an amateur. 

In these pages there is no room for an adequate 
and detailed account of Sidney's achievements as 
an author, or of his relation to other authors in the 
Elizabethan age. From our present point of view, 
his writings are chiefly useful in showing him as a 
courtier and a politician, a representative of the chiv- 
alrous thought that in his day struggled, not always 
successfully, for expression in moods and modes apart 



256 Sir Philip Sidney. 11580- 

from, though intimately associated with, the intel- 
lectual vigour shown by Shakespeare and Spenser 
and other giants. A little must now be said about 
them, however, as contributions to English literature. 

Whether it was written before or after or concur- 
rently with the several portions of " The Arcadia " 
and " Astrophel and Stella," both which were evi- 
dently produced in scraps and at intervals, " The 
Defence of Poesy " may most conveniently be 
noticed first. It was clearly a direct outcome of 
Sidney's studies as president of the Areopagus, and 
the conclusions set forth in it cannot have much 
varied from those formed when he was in frequent 
counsel with Spenser in 1579 an< ^ soon after. 

Of older date than any other English treatise on 
poetry, unless we reckon as such George Gascoigne's 
" Certain Notes of Instruction concerning the Making 
of Verse or Rhyme," a small technical manual pub- 
lished in 1575, Sidney's "Defence" heralded the 
revival of an art that had fallen into contempt. He 
looked back with reverence to Chaucer, " of whom," 
he said, " truly I know not whether to marvel more, 
either that he, in that misty time, could see so 
clearly, or that Ave, in this clear age, go so stum- 
blingly after him." He acknowledged that " The 
Mirror for Magistrates," the first instalment of 
which, with his friend Sackville's Induction, ap- 
peared in 1559, was "meetly furnished of beautiful 
parts." And in the Earl of Surrey's lyrics, only 
printed in 155 1, four years after the author's death, 
he* found " many things tasting of a noble birth and 
worthy of a noble mind." But the " Defence " was 



1583] " The Defence of Poesy!' 257 

written soon, perhaps no more than a few months, 
after the appearance of " The Shepherd's Calendar," 
the prelude to Spenser's greater work and all the 
other noble verse for which the Elizabethan genera- 
tion is famous ; and Sidney had to complain, with 
more sorrow than wonder, that poetry, " from almost 
the highest estimation of learning, is fallen to be 
the laughing-stock of children." His eloquent and 
humorous treatise was in reality as much a challenge 
to his friends of the Areopagus and others to give 
dignity to the poet's calling as a defence of poetry 
against such ribald, but not wholly unmerited, at- 
tacks as Stephen Gosson had lately made in "The 
School of Abuse." 

Sidney came forward as the champion not merely 
of rhymed verse, but of all imaginative work, and 
his definition of poetry covered prose romances like 
his own " Arcadia," and much more sober composi- 
tions as well. " Poesy," he said, " is an art of imita- 
tion ; for so Aristotle termeth in his word 'mimesis,' 
that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting or figur- 
ing forth ; to speak metaphorically, a speaking pic- 
ture — with this end, to teach and delight." " It is 
not rhyming and versing," he insisted, " that maketh 
poetry. One may be a poet without versifying, and 
a versifier without poetry." " Verse is but an orna- 
ment and no cause to poetry ; since there have been 
many excellent poets that never versified, and now 
swarm many versifiers that need never answer to the 
name of poets." What he undertook to defend, 
and in fact glorified, was " that feigning notable 
images of virtues, vices, or what else, with that de- 
17 



258 Sir Philip Sidney. L1580- 

lightful teaching which must be the right describing 
note to know a poet by ; although, indeed, the 
senate of poets have chosen verse as their fittest 
raiment, meaning, as in matters they passed all in 
all, so in manner to go beyond them ; not speaking 
table-talk fashion, or like men in a dream, words as 
they chanceably fall from the mouth, but poising 
each syllable of each word by just proportion, accord- 
ing to the dignity of the subject." 

There is some_ pedantry, but much shrewd com- 
mon-sense, gracefully and torcfbT^ worded, with 
abundant humour, in Sidney's exposition of the 
various kinds of poetry and in his strictures alike on 
those who ignorantly condemn the art and on those 
who bring it into contempt by their ignorant efforts 
to practise it. 

The last paragraph gives us the measure of Sid- 
ney's wit in " The Defence." " Since the ever 
praiseworthy poesy," he wrote, " is full of virtue- 
breeding delightfulness, and void of no gift that 
ought to be in the noble name of learning; since 
the blames laid against it are either false or feeble ; 
since the cause why it is not esteemed in England is 
the fault of poet-apes, not poets ; since, lastly, our 
tongue is most fit to honour poesy and to be hon- 
oured by poesy, I conjure you all that have had the 
evil luck to read this ink-wastiag _toy of mine, even 
in the name of the nine muses, no more to scorn the 
sacred mysteries of poesy, no more to laugh at the 
name of poets, as though they were next inheritors 
to fools." Believe what Aristotle and Bembus and 
Scaliger and others have said about poets and their 



1583J " The Defence of Poesy T 259 

art, urged Sidney. " Lastly believe themselves, 
when they tell you they will make you immortal by 
their verses. Thus doing, your name shall flourish 
in the printers' shops ; thus doing, you shall be of 
kin to many a poetical preface ; thus doing, you 
shall be most fair, most rich, most wise, most all — 
you shall dwell upon superlatives. But if (fie of such 
a but !) you be born so near the dull-making cataract 
of Nilus that you cannot hear the planet-like music 
of poetry ; if you have so earth-creeping a mind that 
it cannot lift itself up to look to the sky of poetry, 
or rather, by a certain rustical disdain, will become 
such a Mome as to be a Momus of poetry ; then, 
though I will not wish unto you the ass's ears of 
Midas, nor to be driven by a poet's verses, as Bubonax 
was, to hang himself, nor to be rhymed to death, as 
is said to be done in Ireland, yet this much curse I 
must send you, in behalf of all poets — that, while 
you live, you live in love and never get favour for 
lacking skill of a sonnet, and, when you die, your 
memory die from the earth for want of an epitaph." 
The mocking tone in which Sidney ended his 
" Defence of Poesy " often shows itself in his 
" Arcadia," which was a satire as well as a romance. 
" His purpose was to limn out such exact pictures of 
every posture in the mind that any man might see 
how to set a good countenance upon all the dis- 
countenances of adversity," says Fulke Greville ; who 
also states that " in all the creations of his making 
his interest and scope was to turn the barren philoso- 
phy precepts into pregnant images of life." Though 
Greville speaks with the authority of a life-long and 



260 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

most intimate friend, there is clearly some exaggera- 
tion in this remark. We have Sidney's own assur- 
rance that " The Arcadia" was " but a trifle, and 
that triflingly handled " ; and the evidence of the 
book itself that it was rather an elaborate web of 
love-stories than an ethical discourse. Yet it does 
contain much that was plainly intended to be direct 
moral teaching, and much wholesome ridicule of the 
modes of living and thinking in Sidney's day. In no 
way a rival to Sir Thomas More's " Utopia," which 
had been written in 1 5 16, it was, with all its difference 
of style and superiority as a work of fiction, in some 
respects a competitor of Lyly's " Euphues," of which 
the first instalment appeared in 1579, ano ^ the success 
of which may have partly induced Sidney to try his 
hand at another " ink-wasting toy," one that, even in 
the incomplete form in which we have it, is more 
than sixteen times as large as " The Defence of 
Poesy." 

In " The Defence " Heliodorus is commended for 
"his sugared invention of that picture of love in 
Theagenes and Chariclea." The " Ethiopic His- 
tory " of the fourth-century romancist, lately trans- 
lated into English by Thomas Underdown, doubtless 
inclined Sidney to introduce a heroic element into 
his "Arcadia " ; but its pastoral suggestion was evi- 
dently due to the Italian " Arcadia " of Sanazarro, 
first printed at Milan in 1504, and to the "Diana 
Enamorada " of Sanazarro's Spanish imitator, Monte- 
mayor, which appeared in 1542. From Montemayor's 
rehearsal, in mingled prose and verse, of his own and 
his friends' experiences and opinions, under the guise 



1583] « The Arcadia!" 26 1 

of shepherds and shepherdesses, Sidney translated at 
least two songs, and his " Diana " served in part as a 
model for " The Arcadia." 

Though cumbrously told, and digressing into other 
stories of love and war, and speeches as long as ser- 
mons, " The Arcadia," in its main thread, makes a 
nearer approach to the modern novel, with a better- 
wrought plot and fuller and more varied character- 
painting, than any English work produced before its 
day or for some time after. 

It has for heroes two cousins, Musidorus, Prince 
of Thessaly, and Pyrocles, Prince of Macedon, be- 
tween whom, we are told, there was such notable 
friendship " as made them more like than the like- 
ness of all other virtues, and made them more near 
one to the other than the nearness of their blood 
could aspire to." After passing through many ad- 
ventures, some of which are recorded in the prelude 
to the main portion of the romance, the cousins met 
with other adventures incident to their intruding 
themselves on Basilius, the eccentric King of Arcadia, 
who, in jealous care for his beautiful daughters, 
Pamela and Philoclea, had broken up his court and 
retired into a forest. There he had built two lodges. 
In one of these he lived with Philoclea and his wife 
Gynecia. In the other he placed Pamela, under the 
charge of one Dametas, a doltish clown, his ugly 
spouse Miso, and their daughter Mopsa, inheritor of 
both parents' defects. It was the purpose of Basilius 
that so long as he lived his daughters should not 
marry, and that they should be allowed to see no 
men but a priest and some shepherds skilled in the 



262 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580 

music that he loved. His unworthy plot was to be 
spoiled by Pyrocles and Musidorus. 

Pyrocles, having fallen in love with Philoclea on 
hearing the report of her charms, disguised himself 
as an Amazon, under the name of Zelmane, and thus 
gained access to Basilius and his household ; only, 
however, for a long while to bring trouble on himself 
and others. By Philoclea he was taken for the war- 
like lady whose garb he affected, and therefore she 
had for him but a sisterly affection. Basilius, de- 
ceived as to his sex, regarded him with much warmer 
liking. Gynecia, also, her practised eye seeing 
through the Amazonian dress, cared more for the 
visitor than sorted with her wifely duty. That was 
the state of affairs disclosed to Musidorus when, 
seeking his truant cousin, he found him in the Arca- 
dian forest, and, assuming the garb of a shepherd, 
and calling himself Dorus, obtained admittance to 
the lodge insufficiently guarded by Dametas, where 
he was quickly enthralled by the majestic beauty 
of Pamela. 

The perplexities of the lovers, and the perils 
through which they had to pass before they could 
achieve their ends, are set forth with great detail in 
Sidney's romance. Loving Pamela, but not daring 
to tell her so, Musidorus was forced to profess affec- 
tion for her ugly maid Mopsa. His graceful bear- 
ing and courteous speech in time bred in Pamela such 
tenderness that " she could no longer keep love from 
looking out through her eyes or going forth in her 
words " ; but she, thinking that he favoured Mopsa, 
and blaming herself for feelings she could not over- 



1583] The Story of "The Arcadia!' 26 



o 



come, gave him no opportunity of telling her what 
were his real thoughts, or of informing her as to his 
proper rank in life. Yet harder was the case of 
Pyrocles, who rarely could seek the society of Philo- 
clea without being held back either by the ardent 
passion of her father, who courted him as a woman, 
or by the watchful jealousy of her mother, who 
would win him as a man. " Loathsomely loved and 
dangerously loving," Pyrocles contrived at length to 
reveal himself to Philoclea, and to learn from her, 
as soon as her astonishment was over, that she found 
it pleasanter to view him as a chaste lover than as a 
sister. Scarcely had that happened, however, when 
both Philoclea and Pamela, together with Pyrocles in 
his Amazonian garb, were stolen by the wicked lady 
Cecropia, widow of the brother of Basilius, whom 
she sought to depose with the view of setting up her 
son Amphialus as King of Arcadia, herself being 
the actual ruler. Amphialus had long loved Philo- 
clea, and, in hope of now winning her, though he was 
not base enough to woo with violence, he sanc- 
tioned his mother's capture and imprisonment of the 
sisters. He did little more than look on while the 
prisoners were being persecuted, and fight bravely 
against the Arcadians who sought to recover them, 
and who had Musidorus, in yet another disguise, for 
their foremost champion. 

Sidney revelled in descriptions of successive bat- 
tles and duels incident to the siege of the castle from 
which Amphialus and Cecropia defied their assail- 
ants ; and the most pathetic passages in his narrative 
are those which recount the sufferings of the sis- 



264 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

ters under the wanton cruelties they endured from 
Cecropia. 

There is a break in the story, as it has come down 
to us, before their sufferings were over ; and the rest 
of the book — about a fourth of the whole — exists 
only in fragmentary shape. " All which followeth 
here of this work," we are told by its old editor, Sir 
William Alexander, " remained as it was done and 
sent away in several loose sheets, being never after 
reviewed nor so much as seen all together by himself, 
without any certain disposition or perfect order. 
Yet, for that it was his, howsoever deprived of the 
just grace it should have had, it was held too good 
to be lost, and therefore with much labour were the 
best coherences that could be gathered out of those 
scattered papers made and afterwards printed, as 
now it is, only by her noble care to whose dear hand 
they were first committed, and for whose delight 
and entertainment only undertaken." 

In this continuation, after a gap which Sir William 
Alexander essayed to fill, we find peace in Arcadia, 
and Pamela and Philoclea, as well as their disguised 
lovers, restored to Basilius. The complications con- 
sequent on the disguises are not unravelled without 
difficulty, and some offences against good taste, 
which Sidney would hardly have retained had he 
revised his " loose sheets." But all ends happily : 
Basilius being brought back to his right mind, in 
respect both of his kingly office and of his duty as a 
husband ; Gynecia also being purged of her evil 
inclinations, and acquiring a reputation for wifely 
excellence, " which, though in that point undeserved, 



1583] Its Merits and Defects. 265 

she did, in the remnant of her life, duly purchase 
with observing all duty and faith, to the example 
and glory of Greece — so uncertain are mortal judg- 
ments the same person most infamous and most 
famous, and neither justly " ; and Musidorus and 
Pyrocles being free to return to their own countries, 
with Pamela and Philoclea as their brides. " The 
solemnities of their marriages, with the Arcadian 
pastorals, full of many comical adventures happening 
to those rural lovers," Sidney or his editor wrote in 
the final sentence, which makes brief reference to 
other persons and events in the story, " may awake 
some other spirit to exercise his pen in that where- 
with mine is already dulled." 

No wonder Sidney's spirit was dulled. The work 
was already far too long and straggling, and in it 
there were many blemishes, by no one else so clearly 
seen and condemned as by the author. He thought 
too poorly of it to suffer it to be printed in his life- 
time, and on his deathbed he desired that it might 
be burned. Happily that request was disobeyed. 
" The Arcadia " was well worth preserving, and it 
had merits that justified the great favour with which 
it was regarded all through the seventeenth century 
and afterwards. But it must be remembered that 
we cannot fully gauge its merits as it was left by its 
author. Towards fitting it for presentment to the 
world, we are told that the Countess of Pembroke 
did much, and that, " as often, repairing a ruinous 
house, the mending of some old part occasioneth the 
making of some new, so here her honourable labour 
began in correcting the faults, and ended in supply- 



266 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

ing the defects." Many faults and defects remain, 
and it is possible that some were the work of the 
correcting hand. 

For all the absurdities in " The Arcadia," Sidney 
had precedents in the Spanish and Italian romances 
that he undertook to rival ; and there was no one to 
complain of them in his day. Shakespeare, who 
evidently obtained from Sidney many suggestions 
as to plots, situations, characters, and even phrases 
and similes, showed in his romantic dramas like con- 
tempt of chronology and topography, and as freely 
violated the probabilities. It is greatly to Sidney's 
credit that, born nearly ten years before Shakespeare, 
and having about fifteen years' start of him as an 
author, he contrived to tell so vigorous, involved, and, 
in its way, coherent a story as " The Arcadia " ; yet 
more to draw such living portraits, revealing so much 
keenness of observation and understanding of human 
nature, as appear in Pyrocles and Musidorus, Philo- 
clea and Pamela, Basilius and Gynecia, Amphialus 
and Cecropia, and many others, including with the 
daintier and more dignified idealisations such comic 
or farcical studies as Dametas, Mopsa, and Miso. 
Both as story-teller and as a painter of character, 
Sidney was vastly superior to Lyly, his chief rival in 
his own day, and — unless we except Robert Greene, 
who was his nearest successor — to all who followed 
him throughout a century. 

In literary style, moreover, " The Arcadia," though 
much inferior to " The Defence of Poesy," is much 
better than " Euphues," which with it set or encour- 
aged the fashion of strained wit in conversation 



1583] Euphuism and Arcadianism. 267 

that prevailed in the Elizabethan age and long after. 
" She has the most harmonious and musical strain of 
wit that ever tempted a true ear," it was said of the 
Lady Saviolina, by her lover, in Ben Jonson's 
" Every Man out of his Humour," first performed 
in 1599; " Oh ! it flows from her like nectar, and 
she doth give it that sweet quick grace and exorna- 
tion in the composure that she does observe as pure 
a phrase and use as choice figures in her ordinary 
conference as any be in * The Arcadia.' " And ten 
years later, in " The Gull's Horn Book," Thomas 
Dekker gave this advice to gallants : " Hoard up the 
finest play-scraps you can get, upon which your lean 
wit may most savourly feed for want of other stuff, 
when the Arcadian and Euphuised gentlewomen 
have their tongues sharpened to set upon you." 

Arcadianism, as uttered by its inventor at any 
rate, was less meretricious than Euphuism. A fair 
sample of it is in the account of Musidorus's jour- 
ney from the Laconian shore on which he was 
wrecked, to Kalander's house, whence he was to 
start on the adventures set forth in the romance. 
On the third day of his walk with Strephon and 
Claius : 

" In the time that the morning did strow roses 
and violets in the heavenly floor against the coming 
of the sun, the nightingales, striving one with the 
other which could in most dainty variety recount 
their wrong-caused sorrow, made them put off their 
sleep, and rising from under a tree, which that night 
had been their pavilion, they went on their journey ; 



268 Sir Philip Sidney. 11580- 

which by and by welcomed Musidorus's eyes, wea- 
ried with the wasted soil of Laconia, with delightful 
prospects. There were hills which garnished their 
proud heights with stately trees ; humble valleys 
whose base estate seemed comforted with the re- 
freshing of silver rivers ; meadows enamelled with 
all sorts of eye-pleasing flowers ; thickets which, be- 
ing lined with most pleasant shade, were witnessed 
so to by the cheerful disposition of many well- 
tuned birds ; each pasture stored with sheep feeding 
with sober security, while the pretty lambs with 
bleating oratory craved the dams' comfort ; here a 
shepherd's boy piping as though he should never be 
old ; there a young shepherdess knitting, and withal 
singing, and it seemed that her voice comforted her 
hands to work, and her hands kept time to her 
voice's music. As for the houses of the country, 
for many houses came under their eye, they were 
all scattered, no two being one by the other, and 
yet not so far off, as that it barred mutual succour ; 
a show, as it were, of an accompaniable solitariness 
and of a civil wildness." 

And here is Sidney's description of Kalander's 
house in Arcadia, which might have stood for his' 
father's home at Penshurst, or his sister's at Wilton : 

" The house itself was built of fair and strong 
stone, not affecting so much any extraordinary kind 
of fineness as an honourable representing of a 
firm stateliness ; the lights, doors and stairs rather 
directed to the use of the guests than to the eye of 



1583] Euphuism and Arcadianism. 269 

the artificer, and yet, as the one chiefly heeded, so 
the other not neglected ; each place handsome with- 
out curiosity, and homely without loathsomeness ; 
not so dainty as not to be trod on, nor yet slubbered 
up with good fellowship ; all more lasting than beau- 
tiful, but that the consideration of the exceeding 
lastingness made the eye believe that it was exceed- 
ing beautiful ; the servants not so many in number 
as cleanly in apparel and serviceable in behaviour, 
testifying even in their countenances that their 
master took as well care to served as of them that 
did serve." 

Designed as a poem, according to Sidney's broad 
interpretation of the term, " The Arcadia " was 
written throughout in what would now be called 
poetical prose, except that portions were actually in 
verse, rhymed or unrhymed. These portions, sepa- 
rated from the context, occupy more space than the 
whole of " Astrophel and Stella." Some are crude 
exercises in the classical metres that the Areopagus 
sought to Anglicise ; others rank among the best 
specimens of Sidney's poetry. Many are scattered 
through the narrative, and spoken or written by its 
leading persons ; but the majority appear in the long 
eclogues that were appended to all but the last of 
the five books into which " The Arcadia " was 
divided. This sonnet, the last of the seven dozen 
poems it contains, which is put into the mouth of 
Musidorus, may be an expression of the thoughts 
that had hold of Sidney's mind when he was reach- 
ing the end of his romance : 



270 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

Since nature's works be good, and death doth serve 

As nature's work, why should we fear to die ? 
Since fear is vain but when it may preserve, 

Why should we fear that which we cannot fly ? 
Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears, 

Disarming human minds of native might, 
While each conceit an ugly figure bears 

Which were not ill, well viewed in reason's light. 
Our owly eyes, which dimmed with passion be 

And scarce discern the dawn of coming day — 
Let them be cleared, and now begin to see 

Our life is but a step in dusty way. 
Then let us hold the bliss of peaceful mind, 
Since, this we feel,* great loss we cannot find. 

And in this earlier sonnet from " The Arcadia " we 
see Sidney's poetic fancy and grace of expression, 
perhaps, at their highest. 

My true love hath my heart, and I have his, 

By just exchange one for the other given ; 
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss ; 

There never was a bargain better driven. 
His heart in me keeps me and him in one ; 

My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides ; 
He loves my heart, for once it was his own ; 

I cherish his, because in me it bides. 
His heart his wound received from my sight ; 

My heart was wounded with his wounded heart ; 
For, as from me on him his hurt did light, 

So still, methought, in me his hurt did smart. 
Both, equal hurt, in this change wrought our bliss. 

My true love hath my heart, and I have his. 

In the third of the eclogues, in which various 
shepherds recount their joys and sorrows, for their 
own pastime or for the diversion of Basilius and other 



* That is, "if we feel this.' 



1583] Poems in "The Arcadia!' 271 

onlookers, Philisides is introduced as a stranger, 
sitting among the shepherds, " resolving in his mind 
all the tempests of evil fortune he had passed " ; and 
among the matters that, on the last page of " The 
Arcadia," Sidney said he must leave for some other 
spirit to exercise his pen with, were " the poor hopes 
of poor Philisides in the pursuit of his affections." 
Philisides was a pseudonym for Philip Sidney, the 
word itself being made up of the first halves of his 
Christian name and surname, and it is in one of his 
lays that the grateful mention of Languet, which has 
already been quoted, occurs. 

Another song of Philisides, in " The Arcadia," 
recounts his griefs as an ill-used lover. 

Each thing both sweet and sad 

Did draw his boiling brain 

To think, and think with pain, 
Of Mira's beams, eclipsed by absence bad. 

To the ground on which he gazed tearfully, to the 
stream that trickled past, to the flowers blooming 
around hirn, to his oaten pipe, to the lambs he was 
tending, to the widowed turtle-dove that " on a 
bared root sat wailing without boot," Philisides 
vainly appealed for comfort. 

Earth, brook, flowers, pipe, lamb, dove, 

Say all — and I with them — 
Absence is death, or worse, to them that love. 
So I, unlucky lad, 
Whom hills from her do hem, 

What fits me now but tears and sighings sad ! 
O, fortune too, too bad ! 



272 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

/ With some important exceptions, all Sidney's best 
I poetry is in " Astrophel and Stella," where Philisides, 
under another name, tells how, when it is too late 
for him to claim and to enjoy her love, another Mira 
has enthralled him by her charms, and how at length 
he learns by hard experience that his quest is vain. 

When sorrow, using mine own fire's might, 
Melts down his lead into my boiling breast, 
To that dark furnace to my heart oppressed, 

There shines a joy from thee, my only light : 

But soon as thought of thee breeds my delight 
And my young soul flutters to thee, his nest, 
Most rude despair, my daily unbidden guest, 

Clips straight my wings, straight wraps me in his night. 



, 



, 



In " Astrophel and Stella," besides eleven songs, 
there are a hundred and eight sonnets ; with which 
may be grouped about a dozen others allied to them 
in theme, but not included in the series, either be- 
cause no convenient place could there be found for 
them, or because in them Stella was not named or 
clearly alluded to. 

Reasons have already been given for declining to 
believe that in the series itself Sidney intended 
to lay bare the secrets of his heart and to make 
either confession or pretence of an unworthy passion 
for Lady Rich. But it is certain that Lady Rich 
was their heroine, and that Sidney would not have 
taken such pains to compliment her had he not 
found pleasure or relief in writing love-poems con- 
cerning her. The blending of seriousness and affec- 
tation in his work is shown by the opening sonnet. 



1583] "Astrophel and Stella." 273 

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, 

That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain, 
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, 

Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain, 
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe ; 

Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain, 
Oft turning others' leaves to see if thence would flow 

Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburnt brain. 
But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay ; 

Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows ; 
And others' feet still seem but strangers' in my way. 

Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, 
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite, 
" Fool," said my muse to me, " look in thy heart and write." 

Sidney did much more than look into his heart 
before writing. Even those who see tragic meaning 
in his sonnets must admit that there was frequent 
turning of " others' leaves," and much studying of 
" inventions fine," in his efforts to paint for Stella's 
entertainment " the blackest face of woe." He fol- 
lowed and improved upon the artifice of Wy at t and 
Surrey, who, at times translating from Petrarch and 
his school, at times closely imitating them, set the 
fashion of sonnet-making in England. The great 
Italian bard sang sweetly to his Laura, and many, 
both in and out of Italy, sought to rival him in his 
vows and protestations. During Sidney's youth, 
Surrey's conceits in honour of the fair Geraldine 
were emulated by every courtier who knew how 
to string rhymes together, and the pretty trick was 
carried on by the greatest poets of his day and after 
it, by Spenser and Shakespeare among the rest. 
Sidney, like his friends Edward Dyer and Fulke 

Greville, and like the Earl of Oxford and other foes, 
18 



274 Sir Philip Sidney. L1580- 

but, so far as we can judge from their extant produc- 
tions, with much more grace and skill than they 
could command, learned to write sonnets in a school 
that not only tolerated but prescribed extravagance 
of phrase and as much fantastic thought as might be 
compressed into fourteen lines of verse. 

With how much grace and skill Sidney paid his 
sonnet-tribute to Stella may be seen from passages 
already quoted. The different mood in which he 
sometimes wrote appears in this, from his miscel- 
laneous poems ; and let it be noted that even here 
he could not abstain from punning on Lady Rich's 
name : 

Leave me, O love, which reachest but to dust ; 

And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things ; 
< — -Grow rich in that which never taketh rust : 

Whatever fades but fading pleasure brings. 
Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might 

To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be, 
Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light 

That doth both shine and give us sight to see. 
O take fast hold ; let that light be thy guide 

In this small course which birth draws out to death, 
And think how ill becometh him to slide 

Who seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath. 
Then farewell, world ; thy uttermost I see : 
Eternal love, maintain thy life in me ! 

A few of Sidney's miscellaneous poems, as well as 
the grouping together in some sort of sequence of 
those collected in " Astrophel and Stella," and the 
editing of three fourths of " The Arcadia," may 
have occupied his leisure in or after 1583. 

A short " Discourse in Defence of the Earl of 



1583] Miscellaneous Writings. 275 

Leicester," which he penned in 1584 or 1585, can 
scarcely be included among his literary achievements. 
Angry at an attack made upon his uncle in a scurri- 
lous " Dialogue between a Scholar, a Gentleman, and 
a Lawyer," better known as " Leicester's Common- 
wealth," which had been written by a Jesuit slan- 
derer, he replied to it very indignantly, and in terms 
too furious to have much weight. It is probable that 
he soon repented of his essay, and that his friends 
thought poorly of it. It was not published until 
some generations had elapsed. 

About contemporary with that pamphlet was 
another and a more important undertaking. Pleased 
with a treatise, " De Veritate Christiana," lately 
written by his friend Philip du Plessis-Mornay, and 
anxious that its wise teachings should be within 
reach of unlearned Englishmen, Sidney began a 
translation of it. Before many chapters had been 
prepared, public matters claimed his attention, and 
he had to devote all his time to politics ; but the 
work was, in his opinion, too important to be 
neglected. He therefore intrusted it to Arthur 
Golding, an industrious scribe, with a request that he 
would complete the translation as soon and as well 
as he could, and dedicate it, when done, to the Earl 
of Leicester. The order was complied with, and, as 
the result, " A Work concerning the Trueness of the 
Christian Religion," was published in 1587. 

It is instructive to note how Sidney, following 
authorship only as a pastime, left his mark in so 
piany fields of literary work, from sonnets and love- 
jstories to criticism and theology. And in estimating 



276 Sir Philip Sidney. [1580- 

his place in the world of letters, we must remember 
how short, as well as how early, was his day. 
Spenser died young; but Spenser, born a year 
before Sidney, outlived him by thirteen years, and 
in those thirteen years wrote most of the works on 
which his fame rests. Shakespeare, born ten years 
later, died in the very prime of manhood ; but his 
lifetime exceeds Sidney's by twenty years, and, had 
it been as brief, neither " Hamlet " nor " Othello " 
nor " Macbeth " nor " King Lear " would have been 
written. Neither Francis Bacon nor Ben Jonson 
could be called old men when they died ; but Jon- 
son's years lacked only one of being twice as many 
as Sidney's, and Bacon's were one more than twice 
as many. 

And in his own age Sidney was more highly 
/ thought of as a friend of authors than as an author. 
" Gentle Sir Philip Sidney ! " exclaimed Thomas 
Nash, in his " Pierce Penniless " ; " thou knewest 
what belonged to a scholar ; thou knewest what 
pains, what toils, what travail, conduct to perfection. 
Well couldst thou give every virtue his encourage- 
ment, every wit his due, every writer his desert, 
'cause none more virtuous, witty, or learned than 
thyself. But thou art dead in thy grave, and hast 
left too few successors of thy glory ; too few to 
cherish the sons of the muses, or water with their 
plenty those budding hopes which thy bounty erst 
planted ! " 

Budding hopes without number Sidney's generous 
friendship quickened during his gracious life. Not 
only did his genius influence the minds of many. 




SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 

FROM THE MINIATURE BY ISAAC OLIVER, AT WINDSOR CASTLE. 



1 583] Author and Friend of A uthors. 277 

Poor as he was, he was able to give them material 
encouragement. " He was a very munificent spirit," 
Aubrey wrote of him, " and liberal to all lovers of 
learning, and to those that pretended any acquaint- 
ance with Parnassus." All the hardworking and 
scantily recompensed book-writers of the day- 
writers on theology and politics, history and geogra- 
phy, what then passed for science and the arts then 
necessary to a gentleman's career, as well as poets 
and romancers — looked to Sidney for help and 
encouragement. Among these were his friends 
Camden and Hakluyt. It was under his patron- 
age that Nicholas Litchfield, in 1 58 1, issued his 
translation of a treatise, " De Re Militari," on the 
plea that no one was more forward to further or 
favour military knowledge than he, being of all men 
ever the most ready and adventurous in every exer- 
cise of war and chivalry. But his most illustrious 
debtor was Edmund Spenser, who, dedicating " The 
Ruins of Time " to the Countess of Pembroke in 
1 591, lamented that " God had disdained the world 
of that most noble spirit which was the hope of all 
learned men and the patron of my young muses." 





CHAPTER XV. 



NEW OCCUPATIONS. 



582-1585. 




• ARLY in March, 1582, Sidney 
returned to London from his 
short visit to the Netherlands, 
and for the next two-and-forty 
months he remained in Eng- 
land, chiefly at Court, but with 
an ever-growing desire to be em- 
ployed in more useful work than he could obtain. 
Work gradually came, but during these three and a 
half years it was not such as he was satisfied with, 
and even in the offices to which he was appointed 
he appears to have been hindered by courtly thral- 
dom from making full and proper use of his oppor- 
tunities. He was too great a favourite with the 
Queen to be often or for long allowed out of her 
presence, either for his own enjoyment or in the 
service of his country. 

For this reason, if for no other, nothing came of a 
project for his going to Ireland. His own and his 

278 



1582] An Irish Project 2 79 

father's friend, Lord Grey of Wilton, who had been 
made Lord Deputy in 1580, and who appears to 
have been really anxious to carry out Sir Henry's 
views as to the government of the turbulent country, 
was not equal to the task ; and he was recalled in 
August, 1582. " Sir Henry Sidney is the only man 
that is wished for here by the country people," Sir 
Nicholas Malby, the Governor of Connaught, had 
written in the previous May to the Earl of Leicester; 
and that wish was repeatedly expressed and com- 
municated to the Queen's Council by others. There 
was some thought of complying with it, and over- 
tures were made to Sir Henry with a view to his 
resuming the post he had already thrice filled. 

Sir Henry's answer to the suggestion is interesting. 
As a prime condition of his undertaking the irksome 
but serviceable business, he stipulated that his son 
Philip should share it with him. " The principal and 
chief cause that moveth him to fancy or have any 
liking to take the charge of the government of Ireland, 
if the same be offered to him," we read, " is the respect 
he beareth him " — that is, Philip. " So that, if he " 
— Philip — " will assuredly promise to go with him 
thither, and withal will put on a determinate mind 
to remain and continue there after him, and succeed 
him in the government, if it may so like her Majesty 
to allow him, he will then yield his consent to go. 
Otherwise he will not leave his quiet and contented 
life at home, considering his years, and the defects 
of nature that accompany age, to enter into so toil- 
some a place, both of body and mind." Sir Henry 
made three other stipulations. In the first place, the 



280 Sir Philip Sid?iey. [1582- 

Oueen must publicly acknowledge that, during his 
three previous terms of office in Ireland, he had done 
as good service as any other rulers before or since ; 
in other words, he required from her an apology for 
her unreasonable misconstruing of his motives and 
disparaging of his achievements. In the second 
place, he asked for a peerage, with a grant of land or 
a fee-farm sufficient to maintain it with dignity ; 
" so that it may be known and better apparent to the 
world that her Majesty hath had gracious considera- 
tion of his service past." In the third place, he 
considered that, if he returned to Ireland, it should 
be with the more impressive title of Lord Lieutenant, 
instead of Lord Deputy. 

Either Queen Elizabeth was of opinion that Sir 
Henry asked too much for himself, or she objected 
to part with Philip, or Philip could not " put on a 
determinate mind " to become assistant Lord Lieu- 
tenant of Ireland, or some other obstacle arose. 
Neither father nor son crossed over to Dublin to 
repair the blunders of Lord Grey of Wilton's admin- 
istration. 

Yet Philip was absent from Court during parts of 
the summer and autumn of 1582. He was in Wales 
in July, busy about his father's affairs ; and in No- 
vember and December he was at Wilton, seeking in 
his sister's company relief from some unexplained 
troubles of his own. From Wilton, on the 16th of 
December, he wrote to the Earl of Leicester, who, 
though not now so influential as he had been before 
the discovery of his marriage with Stella's mother, 
again stood high in the Queen's favour. " I am bold 



1585] Knightage. 281 

to trouble your lordship," Sidney said, " that I may 
not offend in my want of service, to let me under- 
stand whether I may remain absent from the Court 
this Christmastime. Some occasions, both of health 
and otherwise, do make me much desire it." But 
the holiday asked for was not granted. He was in 
attendance upon the Queen on the 1st of January, 
1583, when, poor as he was, he contrived to hand to 
her, as a New Year's present, a beautiful golden 
flower-pot, shaped like a castle, and daintily adorned 
on one side with small diamonds. 

His prospects brightened with the new year. 
More than one cheap compliment was shown to him 
in 1583. The first, however, appears to have been 
bestowed under conditions that robbed it of grace. 
As far back as 1579, when Prince John Casimir was 
in England, the Queen had made him a Knight of 
the Garter, with her own hands fastening the badge 
of the order on his leg ; but he had been unable to 
wait for the formal installation at St. George's 
Chapel, Windsor, and he had therefore selected his 
" very dear friend," Mr. Philip Sidney, to act as his 
proxy. For some reason the ceremony was delayed 
nearly four years. It took place on the 13th of Jan- 
uary, 1583, the anniversary of Elizabeth's coronation, 
and as, according to the rule of the order, no one 
below the rank of knight was competent to serve as 
proxy on such an occasion, it was necessary that 
Philip should first be qualified. This was done on 
the 8th of January, and henceforth, no longer plain 
Philip Sidney, esquire, he was known as Sir Philip 
Sidney, knight, of Penshurst. 



282 Sir Philip Sidney. H582- 

A more substantial favour soon followed, or at any 
rate was promised. " The Queen," Sir Philip wrote 
from Court to Lord Burghley on the 27th of Janu- 
ary, " at my Lord of Warwick's request, hath been 
moved to join me in his office of Ordnance, and, as I 
hear her Majesty yields gracious hearing unto it, my 
suit is your lordship will favour and further it, which, 
I truly affirm unto your lordship, I much more desire 
for the being busied about some serviceable experi- 
ence than for any other commodity, which I think is 
but small, that can arise out of it." " I have from my 
childhood been much bound unto your lordship," 
we read in the same letter, " which, as the meanness 
of my fortune keeps me from ability to requite, so it 
gives me daily cause to make the bond greater by 
seeking and using your favour towards me." 

We have seen so little of the Earl of Warwick — 
who, indeed, lived too quietly, and apparently with 
too much unobtrusive dignity, to obtain any con- 
siderable notice in the annals of his time — that it is 
necessary to remind the reader that he was Philip 
Sidney's uncle, Ambrose, older than the Earl of Lei- 
cester by four or five years. Spenser wrote of him, 
in " The Ruins of Time," as one 

That whilst he lived was of none envied, 
And, dead, is now, as living, counted dear, 
Dear unto all that true affection bear. 

Warwick had been appointed Master of the Ord- 
nance in the second year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, 
and had held the office a quarter of a century before 
he " moved " the Queen to allow his nephew to share 




AMBROSE DUDLEY, EARL OF WARWICK 

FROM AN ENGRAVING IN " HEROOLOGIA ANGLICA. '' 



1585] Master sJiip of the Ordnance, 283 

it with him. Though the request seems to have 
been informally assented to, the appointment was 
not made for some time. Letters patent were issued 
on the 2 1st of July, 1585, cancelling the Earl of War- 
wick's former warrant of office and assigning the post 
to him and Sir Philip Sidney, to be held by them 
jointly during life, and, on the death of either, to be 
retained by the survivor. But these letters patent 
appear to have been prepared long before, under 
somewhat mysterious conditions. 

On the 13th of February, 1583, Sir Francis Wal- 
singham wrote from the Court at Richmond to Mr. 
Egerton, the Solicitor-General, officially requesting 
him to prepare a fresh patent for the Mastership of 
the Ordnance in the joint names of the Earl of War- 
wick and Sir Philip Sidney : but, as he added, "pray- 
ing you withal that for some considerations you will 
keep the matter secret, and give especial charge 
unto your clerk that shall engross the book to use 
the same in like sort." * The motives for secrecy 
are not evident. Perhaps Queen Elizabeth had not 
made up her mind, and, until she could be persuaded 
to sign the document, Sidney's friends deemed it 
better that nothing should be publicly known about 
it. From this time, or soon afterwards, records show 
that Sidney was frequently acting as his uncle's 
assistant, probably without even the " small com- 
modity " in the way of salary that he looked for ; and 
he was not quite satisfied with this arrangement. On 
the 22d of July he wrote thus to Lord Burghley from 
Ramsbury in Wiltshire : " Without carrying with 

* " Egerton Papers " (Camden Society), p. 92. 



284 Sir Philip Sidney. 11582- 

me any further reason of this boldness than your 
well-known goodness unto me, I humbly crave of 
your lordship your good word to her Majesty, con- 
firming that grant she once made unto me of joining 
me in patent with my lord of Warwick, whose desire 
is that it should be so." 

Sidney was a candidate for another post. Sir 
Edward de Horsey, Captain of the Isle of Wight, 
died on the 23d of March, 1583. Four days later 
Edward Dyer wrote to Walsingham, saying it was 
" generally reported " that Sir Philip was to be the 
new Captain, and urging that " certain imperfec- 
tions " in Sir Edward's patent should be amended 
in ''any new patent for Sir Philip Sidney."* The 
post, however, was assigned to Sir George Carey, son 
of the first Lord Hunsdon. 

But Sidney held at least one dignified office in 
and after the early part of 1583. In a list of " prin- 
cipal officers of the army," under that date, his name 
is entered as General of the Horse ; his three more 
important associates being Lord Grey as General-in- 
Chief, Sir William Peckham as Lieutenant-General, 
and Sir Robert Constable as Marshal. f 

Yet another document shows that, if Sir Philip 
obtained no direct salary for the work he was now 
permitted to do in the service of his Queen, indirect 
recompense was found for him. Of sundry amounts 
to be levied on recusant clergymen in 1583 a portion 
was assigned to him, other portions going to his 



* State Papers, Elizabeth, Domestic, vol. cxli., No 47. 
f Ibid., vol. cxli., No. 46. 



1585] Other Service of the State. 285 

uncle the Earl of Leicester, and to his friend Sir 
Thomas Cecil, Lord Burghley's son.* 

Thus it is clear that early in 1583, he being then 
in his twenty-ninth year and having already waited 
long enough for important service under the Crown 
and on behalf of the State, Sidney's merits as some- 
thing more than a courtier were at length beginning 
to be recognised, and his wishes to be somewhat 
gratified. This advancement he doubtless owed in 
part to the efforts of his influential friends in Eliza- 
beth's Council, one of whom in particular had a spe- 
cial reason for helping him. 

In a short letter that he wrote from Wilton to Sir 
Francis Walsingham as far back as the 17th of De- 
cember, 1581, Sidney said : "The country affords 
no other stuff for letters but humble salutations, 
which humbly and heartily I send to yourself, my 
good lady, and my exceeding like to be good 
friend." The "exceeding like to be good friend," it 
is reasonable to assume, was Frances Walsingham, 
the Secretary's daughter, whom Philip must have 
known from her early childhood, and who was at that 
time about fourteen years of age, old enough to be 
thought of as a future wife for some one.f But we 
have no certain knowledge that she was thought of 
as a wife for Sidney before the commencement of 

1583. 
A letter from Sir Henry Sidney to Walsingham, 

* State Papers, Elizabeth, Domestic, vol. cxli., No. 52. 

\ There is no record of her birth, but this was probably in 1567, as 
Sir Francis Walsingham married Ursula, the widow of Sir Robert 
Worsley, in or near July, 1566. 



286 Sir Philip Sidney. [1582- 

written on the 1st of March in this year, which has 
been already quoted from, shows that the project 
had then been long enough mooted for further delay 
to seem undesirable. " I have understood of late," 
wrote Sir Henry, "that coldness is thought in me in 
proceeding to the matter of the marriage of our 
children. In truth, sir, it is not so, nor shall it 
ever be found. I most willingly agree, and protest 
I joy in the alliance with all my heart." It was only 
his embarrassments and his inability to furnish his 
son with an income suitable to his needs as a hus- 
band, Sir Henry urged, that had made him backward 
in acceding to it ; and then followed a curious sen- 
tence. "As I know," he said, "that it is for the 
virtue which is, or which you suppose is, in my son, 
that you made choice of him for your daughter, 
refusing haply far greater and far richer matches 
than he, so was my confidence great that by your 
good means I might have obtained some reasonable 
suit of her Majesty, and therefore I nothing regarded 
any present gain, for, if I had, I might have received 
a great sum of money for my good will of my son's 
marriage, greatly to the relief of my present biting 
necessity." 

Let us hope that Sir Henry never had any serious 
thought of selling his son, as some people sell their 
daughters, for a marriage portion to be applied to 
his own use. But, if we are to credit an old writer, 
Sir Philip had more than one damsel, besides Frances 
Walsingham, to choose from. Many noble ladies, 
we are told, " ventured as far as modesty would per- 
mit to signify their affections unto him," and the 



1585] Another Marriage Project. 287 

tokens that their modesty permitted were " obvious 
to every eye." It is worth noting that Spenser says 
pretty much the same, but in fanciful verse which 
makes Stella the sole cause of Astrophel's coldness 
towards others. 

Full many maidens often did him woo 

Them to vouchsafe amongst his rhymes to name, 

Or make for them as he was wont to do 

For her that did his heart with love enflame ; 

For which they promised to dight for him 

Gay chapelets of flowers and garlands trim. 

Another statement by the gossip just cited, and 
one which we can more readily believe, especially as 
Sir Francis Walsingham, if influential enough to 
help his future son-in-law to some employment under 
the Crown, was too poor to provide his daughter 
with a large dowry, is that the marriage was of the 
sort likeliest to lead to happiness on both sides. 
" Though Sir Philip received no considerable accru- 
ment of means by his match," we are told, " yet, 
accounting virtue a portion to itself, he so affection- 
ately loved her that herein he was exemplary to all 
gentlemen not to carry their love in their purses, or 
so to consult profit as to prefer it before merit in 
marriage." Sir Henry too, in his letter of the 1st 
of March, speaks of " the joyful love and great liking 
between our most dear and sweet children, whom 
God bless." " Commend me," he adds, "most 
heartily to my good lady cousin and sister, your 
wife, and bless and buss our sweet daughter." 

We have much less information than we could 
wish concerning the circumstances of Sir Philip 



288 Sir Philip Sidney. [1582- 

Sidney's marriage with Mistress Frances Walsing- 
ham.* On the ioth of February, 1583, Lord Burgh- 
ley wrote to congratulate Sir Francis on the " com- 
fortable purpose " regarding his daughter. " God 
bless it," the Lord Treasurer said, f But the 
wedding did not take place until the 20th of Sep- 
tember, 1583, % having been delayed at least two or 
three months by the Queen's objection to it. On 
the ioth of March Walsingham wrote from Barn 
Elms, his house near Putney, to thank Sir Christopher 
Hatton for his " honourable and friendly defence of 
the intended match." " I find it strange that her 
Majesty should be offended withal," he said, it being 
only " a private marriage between a free gentleman 
of equal calling with my daughter." " I hope," he 
added, " when her Majesty shall weigh the due 
circumstances of place, person, and quality, there 

* There is reason to suppose that Frances Walsingham, young as 
she was, had clandestinely engaged herself to an earlier lover. Early 
in 1583 one John Wickerson wrote from the Marshalsea, pointing 
out that he had been two years in prison for his " rash contract of 
matrimony with Mistress Frances, which to relinquish would be a 
perpetual scruple and worm in conscience, and hazard of body and 
soul," and imploring Sir Francis "to weigh and have remorse unto 
his perilous state, and vouchsafe the word at the length to grant your 
consent and goodwill for performance of their said contract in the 
holy state of matrimony." The petition is endorsed by Walsingham : 
"Desires to be enlarged after his long imprisonment, and that I 
would not any longer continue my dislike of his contract with 
Mistress Frances."— State Papers, Elizabeth, Domestic, vol. clviii., 
No. 84. 

f Ibid., vol. clviii., No. 62. 

J Friday, the 2 1st of September, is the date given in Sir Henry 
Sidney's Psalter; but as in 15S3 the 21st of September fell on a 
Saturday, the wedding was probably on Friday, the 20th. 



1585] Marriage under Difficulties. 289 

can grow no just cause of offence. I pray you, sir, 
if she enter into any further speech of the matter, 
let her understand that you learn the match is held 
for concluded, and withal let her know how just 
Cause I shall have to find myself aggrieved if her 
Majesty still show her mislike thereof." Her 
Majesty's " mislike" was not easily overcome. Next 
month, on the 20th of April, Roger Manners wrote 
to his nephew, the young Earl of Rutland, saying: 
" I have been with Mr. Secretary, who is somewhat 
troubled that her Majesty conceives no better of the 
marriage of his daughter with Sir Philip Sidney ; 
but I hope shortly all will be well." So it proved ; 
and apparently her Majesty's wrath was not very 
great, no greater than she felt whenever a favourite 
showed by marrying that he acknowledged allegi- 
ance to any besides herself. A fortnight later the 
same correspondent reported that the Queen had 
" passed over the offence." * Two and a half years 
afterwards, one day in November, 1585, her Majesty 
rode up from Richmond to London on purpose 
to be godmother at the christening of Sir Philip's 
daughter, who was named Elizabeth after her, and 
on this occasion she made a present of a hundred 
shillings to the nurse and midwife. 

During these two and a half years, when not ab- 
sent on official duties, or in attendance at Court, 
Sidney seems generally to have resided at Walsing- 
ham House or at Barn Elms, with his wife's parents, 
it being the custom of young wives in those days to 

* Belvoir MSS. ; Roger Manners to the Earl of Rutland, 20 
April and 7 May, 1583. 
19 



290 Sir Philip Sidney. [1582- 

remain with their parents until their husbands had 
homes of their own to take them to. In Sidney's 
case, Penshurst, which would come to him on his 
father's death, was available for his and his wife's 
use, and they were doubtless sometimes there on 
visits ; but he could not often be long absent from 
London and the Queen's presence, and neither at 
Leicester House nor in the sumptuous residences of 
his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, is it likely that 
he was entertained as frequently as in his bachelor 
days. 

For some time after his marriage, however, we 
meet with but few records of Sir Philip's movements 
and employments, and these, with important excep- 
tions, are rather trivial. Thus in December, 1583, 
we find him writing from Walsingham House a 
pleasant complimentary letter to his kinsman, the 
Earl of Rutland ; and we hear nothing more of him 
till the following February when it was reported to 
the same Earl of Rutland by his secretary or agent 
that Sir Philip Sidney and the Earl of Warwick 
seemed jealous at his having lent a horse of special 
value to the Earl of Cumberland.* A month later Sir 
Philip, being away from Court, bespoke Sir Francis's 
favour for one Captain Gore, the bearer of the letter ; 
and added that Lady Cheke blamed him for not 
pushing her interests with the Queen, but that the 
fault must lie between her Majesty and Sir Francis.f 

* Belvoir MSS. ; Sir Philip Sidney to the Earl of Rutland, 20 
December, 1583 ; Thomas Scriven to the same, 6 February, 1584. 

f State Papers, Elizabeth, Domestic, vol. clxix., No. 13 ; Sir 
Philip Sidney to Walsingham, 6 March, 1584. 



1585] Miscellaneous Occupations. 291 

Other documents show that Sidney was now 
expected to perform work as a Master of the Ord- 
nance, though he had not yet been duly installed 
in the office. In June a request was made that he 
should go down to Dover and take counsel with Sir 
Thomas Scott and other commissioners respecting 
plans for improving the defences of the harbour, 
making fresh jetties, and other necessary business ; 
and to this request Walsingham replied that Sidney 
would not be able to take part in the deliberations.* 

He was probably in Glamorganshire on the 23d 
of September, 1584, when his brother Robert was 
married to Barbara Gamage — in later days the 
Countess of Leicester, who was Ben Jonson's friend 
and patroness ; and he was at Wilton next month, 
when he and Robert stood as godfathers, their 
mother being the other sponsor, to Philip, the second 
son of Lord and Lady Pembroke, who was born on 
the 1 6th of October.-)- 

Of Sidney's occupations about this time in another 
way we have welcome but inadequate evidence. 
Giordano Bruno, the famous Italian philosopher and 
bold speculator in science and theology, who was six 
years older than Sidney, visited England in 1583, 
under the protection of M. Castelnau de Mauvissiere, 
the French ambassador in London, who was a very 
enlightened thinker and patron of free thought, 
albeit the official representative of a political organi- 

* State Papers, Elizabeth, Domestic, vol. clxxxi., No. 13, and vol. 
clxxii., No. 12; Thomas Digges to (?) Walsingham, 8 June, 1584; 
note by Walsingham, 4 July, 1584. 

f Sir Henry Sidney's Psalter. 



292 Sir Philip Sidney. [1582- 

sation under Henry the Third not less vicious and 
more contemptible than that controlled by Philip the 
Second of Spain. In June Bruno went down to 
Oxford, and there took part in a public disputation 
before the Chancellor, still the Earl of Leicester, 
besides delivering a course of lectures on the immor- 
tality of the soul and other subjects. He was not 
well received by the professors and students, whom 
he afterwards denounced for their pedantry, bigotry, 
and bad manners. Returning to London, he lived 
there and thereabouts for some two years. He tells 
how, on the evening of Ash Wednesday, the 13th of 
February, 1584, he was invited by Fulke Greville to 
meet Sidney and others in order that they might 
hear " the reasons of his belief that the earth moves " ; 
and this seems to have been only one of numerous 
gatherings — a revival or a continuation, in another 
form and for graver purposes, of the Areopagus of 
1579. " We- met," Bruno says, " in a chamber in the 
house of Mr. Fulke Greville, to discuss moral, meta- 
physical, mathematical, and natural speculations." 
What would we not give for a detailed report of 
those discussions ! 

Bruno had heard of Sidney as a great student and 
a good friend of students, he informs us, as far back 
as 1579, when he was in Milan. While in London, 
he evidently saw much of the large-minded courtier, 
and received many kindnesses from him. To " the 
most illustrious and excellent knight, Sir Philip 
Sidney," he dedicated his " Spaccio de la Bestia 
Trionfante," which was published early in 1584. 
To Sidney he also, in 1585, dedicated another work 



1585] Friendship with Giordano Bruno. 293 

in poetic guise, " Degli Heroici Furori." " There is 
none more proper to receive the dedications of these 
discourses, excellent sir," he here said. " To you 
they are presented in order that the Italian may 
reason with one who has understanding, that verse 
may be under the countenance and judgment of a 
poet, that philosophy may show itself in its present 
nakedness to your fair discernment, that heroic 
things may be directed to a heroic and generous 
soul, that honour may be offered to one possessing 
such worth as is ever made manifest in you." * 

The heresy-hunters of Sidney's day and afterwards 
found fault with him for his sympathy with the 
valiant, if somewhat whimsical, freethinker who in 
1600 was burnt for his boldness ; but, befriending 
and agreeing in many ways with Giordano Bruno, 
perhaps Sidney was in closer agreement with his 
friend Philip du Plessis-Mornay, whose " Work con- 
cerning the Trueness of the Christian Religion " 
he was now translating, or having translated. Of 
the contempt in which he and his friends held the 
traditions and superstitions of the Church of Rome 
we have a small instance in a letter that Sir John 
Perrott, his friend and his father's great disciple as 
Lord Deputy of Ireland, wrote to Sir Francis Wal- 
singham from Dublin on the 20th of October, 1584. 
" For a token," said Sir John, "I have sent you a 
holy Columkill's Cross — a god of great veneration 
with Sorleyboy and all Ulster ; for so great was his 
grace as happy he thought himself that could get a 

* Bruno, "Opera" (Leipsig, 1830), vol. ii., pp. 117, 137,' 150, 
311. See also Mr. Frith's " Life of Giordano Bruno " (1887). 



294 S* r Philip Sidney. [1582- 

kiss of the said cross. I send him unto you that 
when you have made some sacrifice to him, accord- 
ing to the disposition you bear to idolatry, you may, 
if you please, bestow him upon my good Lady Wal- 
singham or my Lady Sidney, to wear as a jewel of 
weight and bigness, and not of price and goodness, 
upon some solemn feast or triumph day of the 
Court."* 

Sidney and his friends had some excuse for scoff- 
ing at what 'they regarded as idolatrous perversions 
of the Christian religion. He and they were sturdy 
Protestants and they saw so much danger to the 
political as well as the social well-being of England 
in the efforts of Catholics, not only to strengthen 
and enlarge a failing tyranny in the continent of 
Europe, but also to harass and undermine Queen 
Elizabeth's authority and influence by plotting in 
Scotland and Ireland, and even in the English 
provinces and in London itself, that they could not 
be in tolerant mood as regards any teaching that 
came from Rome or any ignorant and extravagant 
outcome of that teaching. 

Events were now moving rapidly towards the 
great crisis in European affairs for which Sidney 
had long been hoping, and, so far as he could, had 
long been working ; but they were not moving fast 
enough to satisfy him. Restless desires and fitful 
efforts to hasten the crisis, chagrin at what he re- 
garded as waste of opportunities, and endeavour to 
make use of such opportunities as he considered to be 
within his reach, marked the brief remainder of his life. 

* " Ulster Journal of Archaeology," vol. ii., p. 125. 



T585] Gathering Storms. 295 

His temper and his leanings in one direction are 
shown in a letter he wrote on the 21st of July, 1583, 
to his friend Sir Edward Stafford, at that time am- 
bassador at the French Court : " We are here all 
solito" he said. " Her Majesty seems affected to 
deal in the Low Country matters ; but I think noth- 
ing will come of it. We are half persuaded to enter 
into the journey of Sir Humphrey Gilbert very 
eagerly ; whereunto your Mr. Hakluyt hath served 
for a very good trumpeter." Richard Hakluyt was 
as much Sir Philip Sidney's as Sir Edward Stafford's, 
and part of his trumpeting had been done in the 
first small edition of his " Voyages," which he dedi- 
cated to his old college friend in 1582. 

Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who had spent much time 
in valiant service under Sir Henry Sidney in Ire- 
land, was one of the pioneers of American colonisa- 
tion in which Philip had been interested from 
the time of his participation in Martin Frobisher's 
abortive expeditions to Meta Incognita between 
1574 and 1576. Others specially concerned in these 
and like enterprises were Sir Richard Grenville, Sir 
George Peckham, Christopher Carleill, who married 
a daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, and was thus 
closely related to Sir Philip Sidney, and Gilbert's 
half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh, the friend of Ed- 
mund Spenser, with whom he was associated in 
Ireland under Lord Grey of Wilton. The journey 
into which Sidney was half persuaded to enter very 
eagerly was the famous expedition to Newfound- 
land, on which Gilbert started in the summer of 
1583, and in which he was wrecked on the 9th of 



296 Sir Philip Sidney. n 582- 

September, uttering with his last breath the memora- 
ble words, " Courage, my friends, we are as near to 
heaven by sea as on the land ! " 

Meanwhile Sir Philip Sidney was paying at any 
rate some attention to other parts of the stupendous 
plan for the conquest and colonisation of America 
by Englishmen. Early in 1583, or at some previous 
time, letters patent were issued by which he was 
" licensed and authorised to discover, search, find out, 
view, and inhabit certain parts of America not yet 
discovered, and out of those countries, by him, his 
heirs, factors or assigns, to have and enjoy, to him, 
his heirs and assigns for ever, such and so much 
quantity of ground as should amount to the number 
of thirty hundred thousand acres of ground and 
wood, with all commodities, jurisdictions and royal- 
ties, both by sea and land, with full power and 
authority that it should and might be lawful for the 
said Sir Philip Sidney, his heirs and assigns, at all 
times thereafter to have, take and lead in the said 
voyage, to travel thitherwards or to inhabit there 
with him or them, and every or any of them, such 
and so many of her Majesty's subjects as should 
willingly accompany him and them, and any or 
every of them, with sufficient shipping and munition 
for their transportations." 

Philip Sidney did not seriously contemplate going 
out himself to plant and manage a colony in Amer- 
ica. The Queen would not have allowed him to do 
that ; and as he was about to take to himself a wife, 
there were special reasons against the project in the 
spring of 1583. But it is significant that he should 



15851 Plans for American Colonisation. 297 

have sought and obtained the charter, and thus con- 
stituted himself a pioneer in the great enterprise 
about which so many other far-seeing Englishmen 
were henceforward to be busied. Probably he 
thought rather of encouraging others in the work 
than of personally engaging in it, and of course, 
poor as he was, he had an eye to the chances of 
profit from the possession and development of his 
three million acres of as yet undiscovered land. 

Accordingly we find that in July, 1583, as soon as 
was convenient after his letters patent had been 
secured, he assigned to Sir George Peckham a small 
part of his American rights. " For the more speedy 
execution of her Majesty's grant and the enlarge- 
ment of her Majesty's dominions and governments, 
for the better encouragement of Sir George Peck- 
ham and his associates in so worthy and commend- 
able an enterprise, as also for divers other causes 
specially moving him," according to the document, 
he authorised Peckham, or any persons, guild or 
company Peckham might depute the license to, to 
discover and in his name take possession of thirty 
thousand out of the three million acres granted to 
him, and to have absolute holding of " all royalties, 
titles, pre-eminences, privileges, liberties and digni- 
ties thereunto belonging." Sidney may have 
thought that, if Peckham and the adventurers allied 
with him made a start, he would gain by the im- 
proved value of the property remaining to him. But 
in 1583 Peckham had done as much as he was pre- 
pared to do in helping to fit out Gilbert's luckless 
expedition, and next year whatever action he pro- 



298 Sir Philip Sidney. [1582- 

jected or Sidney was concerned in appears to have 
been limited to co-operation in the larger scheme 
pushed forward by Raleigh. 

Gilbert being dead, Raleigh had acquired a title 
to leadership in carrying on his kinsman's work. In 
March, 1584, he obtained from Queen Elizabeth a 
charter similar to that granted to his half-brother, 
and the two small vessels that he sent out before 
the end of April, under Captain Amadas and Cap- 
tain Barlow, had good fortune. Roanoke was dis- 
covered and the colony of Virginia was founded. 
In this expedition Sidney apparently had no direct 
share, Raleigh prudently keeping it in such small 
proportions that the whole management could be in 
his own hands. When it was deemed necessary, 
however, that the Queen's charter to Raleigh should 
be confirmed, and the limits of the new colony de- 
fined by Parliament, the matter was on the 14th of 
December referred to a committee of which Sidney 
was one of the members, Sir Francis Drake being 
another. The bill approved by this committee of 
the House of Commons was passed on the 18th of 
December. 

The next year steps were taken to render the 
colony prosperous, and in these Sidney evidently had 
a considerable share, though we can only guess that 
it was his intention, by assisting Raleigh's work, to 
prepare for exercising his own rights as a colony- 
maker. Of the seven vessels that set sail for Vir- 
ginia on the 9th of April, 1585, Sir Richard Grenville 
was appointed admiral, and with them went Ralph 
Lane to take office as governor on land. Lane, now 



1585] Raleigh's Virginia. 299 

about fifty-five years old, had done his share of fight- 
ing under Sir Henry Sidney and others, and had been 
one of " Leicester's band " of equerries to the Queen. 
" Having served her Majesty these twenty years, 
spent my patrimony, bruised my limbs, and yet 
nevertheless at this day not worth one groat by her 
Majesty's gift towards a living," as he stated in a 
petition to Lord Burghley in July, 1583, he was in 
February, 1585, appointed to the Virginian post at 
the instigation of Sir Francis Walsingham and Sir 
Philip Sidney, from both of whom he acknowledged 
having received favours. It was chiefly to Walsing- 
ham, but also to Sidney, that he sent home the 
letters that fill out the first chapter in the history 
of Virginia. Lane was not strong enough or wise 
enough for his work. His governorship was a fail- 
ure, and the blunders committed by him, or by 
others whom he was not able to control, had to be 
corrected as far as might be, and atoned for. 

While the experiment was being made, Sidney was 
too busy with other matters to pay much or steady 
attention to it. 





CHAPTER XVI. 

IN THE WORLD OF POLITICS. 
I584-I535- 

^thji HE Duke of Anjou, who a 
year before had abandoned 
his crazy claim to partnership 
with William of Orange in 
rule over the Netherlands, 
but had continued to be 
talked of as a possible hus- 
band for Queen Elizabeth, died on the 13th of June, 
1584. A month later, on the 12th of July, William 
was murdered. The second event, occasioning special 
grief to Sir Philip Sidney when the news reached 
him, as thereby he lost one of his worthiest friends 
and the one from whom he rightly hoped most 
for the advancement of Protestantism and political 
liberty in Europe, was far more momentous than 
the first in bringing about a crisis from which 
Sidney was anxious that public advantage should 
result. 




300 



15841 The European Crisis. 301 

Henceforward, until his own untimely death, he 
applied himself to political work with much greater 
zeal than he appears to have lately shown, although 
the views he now held and sought to enforce were in 
effect no different from those we have seen him ad- 
vocating in earlier days. The lessons he had begun 
to learn when, as a youth of seventeen, he was an 
eye-witness of the St. Bartholomew Massacre in 1572, 
the influence exerted on him after that by Hubert 
Languet and other sturdy Huguenots, the bold 
schemes for a general Protestant league that he had 
put forward during his short embassage to Germany 
in 1577, were at no time forgotten. But the busy 
idleness of Court life which was imposed upon him 
and against which he vainly rebelled, the pleasure he 
found in literary and other pursuits, and, above all, 
perhaps, the fickleness and perversity of Queen Eliza- 
beth, which vexed the souls and crippled the hands 
of her ablest statesmen, had stood in the way of such 
service as he desired to do to his country and the 
world. Now that he was in his thirtieth year, not 
deeming that so short a time remained in which he 
could live and work, but deeming that he had already 
wasted time enough, he was eager to take advantage 
of the better opportunities for patriotic effort that 
he saw to be within reach and to be more than ever 
incumbent on all honest Englishmen. 

One task proposed for him can scarcely have been 
to his taste. On hearing of the Duke of Anjou's 
death, Queen Elizabeth resolved to send a special 
message to Anjou's brother, King Henry the Third 
of France, and their mother, Catherine de' Medici, 



302 Sir Philip Sidney. [1584- 

assuring them of her extreme grief at the loss of so 
rare and noble a friend, and of her unfeigned love 
and esteem for the survivors ; and for messenger she 
chose Sir Philip Sidney. While the embassage was 
being arranged the report of William of Orange's 
assassination reached England, and on this account, 
perhaps, weightier words, which read as though he 
had drafted them himself, were added to Sir Philip's 
instructions. He was to ask whether King Henry 
felt disposed to do anything for the relief of " those 
poor afflicted people of the Low Countries," and to 
urge that, should they be overcome by Spain — as, 
unless some prompt assistance was rendered to 
them, was likely — all Christendom would suffer. 
The world had long wondered, Sidney was commis- 
sioned to say, why King Henry had so overslipped 
the means proper to keeping Spain in check. King 
Philip lacked only the quiet possession of the Low 
Countries to make him the most powerful monarch 
that had ever been in Europe, and, if he were allowed 
thus further to aggrandise himself, the consequences 
would be most perilous to everyone of his neigh- 
bours, and especially to the King of France. 

Sir Philip never delivered the message. After he 
had, at great trouble and expense, made the neces- 
sary preparations, and had even, near the end of 
July, proceeded some way on his journey, it was an- 
nounced that King Henry had gone to Lyons and 
could not receive the message unless it was kept till 
his return to Paris a couple of months later. There- 
fore the project came to nothing ; and this was just 
as well. The formalities of condolence on the Duke 



1585] The European Crisis. 303 

of Anjou's death were quite uncalled-for, and no good 
could have been effected by the most eloquent lan- 
guage it would have been possible to offer to the 
French king respecting the Netherlands. Sidney- 
shared the opinion of his friend Sir Edward Stafford, 
the regular English ambassador in Paris, who, writ- 
ing about this time to Walsingham, described Henry 
as " a king who seeketh nothing but to impoverish 
his poor people and to enrich a couple, who careth 
not what cometh after his death so that he may rove 
about while he liveth." 

Being persuaded that France would render no 
assistance to the Low Countries, and that Germany 
would be equally apathetic, Sidney watched with 
growing alarm the disasters consequent to the 
Netherlander on the loss of their head, and on the 
quickened energy with which Alexander Farnese, 
the Duke of Parma, Philip's new viceroy, was cor- 
rupting many of them with bribes and overcoming 
others by the sword. The Spanish occupation of 
Dendermonde on the 17th of August, of Ghent on 
the 17th of September, and of other towns of more 
or less importance during the ensuing weeks, con- 
vinced Sidney that, unless strong measures were 
quickly taken for thwarting the designs of King 
Philip and his agents, the cause of the Netherlands 
and all that went with it would be ruined. 

But the measures he now chiefly favoured were 
not, as heretofore, the sending of English soldiers 
to aid in the defence of the Dutch towns. He was 
anxious for a more direct attack to be made upon 
Spain. Flanders, he insisted, as we learn from his 



304 Sir Philip Sidney. [1584- 

friend, Fulke Greville, was the best fortified part of 
the Spanish dominions and the worst battle-ground 
that Queen Elizabeth could choose, if, as seemed 
more and more* certain, the task of helping the 
Netherlanders was to be shirked by France, Ger- 
many, and all the other nations of the continent, 
and to be undertaken, single-handed, by England. 
For England to send an army into the Netherlands, 
" without any curious examination as to what power 
the adverse party hath prepared to encounter, by 
defence, invasion, or division, must probably make 
us losers both in men, money, and reputation." 
Some better mode of weakening King Philip must 
be found, and, in Sidney's opinion, " there were but 
two ways left to frustrate this ambitious monarch's 
designs ; the one, that which diverted Hannibal, 
and, by setting fire to his own house, made him 
draw in his spirits to comfort his heart ; the other, 
that of Jason, by fetching away his golden fleece, 
and not suffering any man to enjoy that which every 
man so much affected." * 

In taking this view Sidney was at one with Gilbert, 
Raleigh, Drake, Frobisher, and the other bold seamen 
who, with a keen eye to their own profit as well as to 
their country's good, purposed, not only to plant 
colonies in regions claimed by King Philip as his 
property, but also to hamper and despoil the trade 
of Spain with its possessions in both the Indies, and 
even to make raids on Cadiz, Seville, and the thriving 

* A very full account of Sidney's and of his own views on the 
political situation at this time is given by Fulke Greville in his life of 
his friend. 



1585] In Parliament Again. 305 

marts and ports of Spain itself. He had lately, 
it will be remembered, obtained from Queen Eliza- 
beth a charter to establish a colony of his own in 
America, and had made over a fraction of his rights 
to Sir George Peckham. His share in the work of a 
committee of the House of Commons on Raleigh's 
new colony in Virginia has also been mentioned. 

The session of the House of Commons in which 
the business was considered sat from the 23d of No- 
vember till the 2 1st of December, 1584, and, after 
six weeks' Christmas holidays, from the 4th of Feb- 
ruary to the 29th of March, 1585. In it, as in the 
previous Parliament, which had its last session in 
1 581, Sir Philip Sidney sat as a member for his native 
county of Kent. Its occupations were, with a few 
exceptions, unimportant. In December, besides his 
service on the Virginian bill, Sidney was placed on a 
committee that considered a measure for the preser- 
vation of timber in Sussex. In February and March 
he was on committees concerned with the mainte- 
nance of Rochester Bridge, the preservation of woods 
in Kent, and the privileges of curriers. 

The weightiest performance of the session was its 
legislation against Jesuits. On the 18th of February 
Sidney was deputed, with Fulke Greville and others, 
to confer with the Lords respecting a severe project 
approved by the Commons, but objected to by the 
Upper House on the score of its excessive Puritan- 
ism. The compromise arrived at was sufficiently 
tyrannical, and only to be excused by the fact that 
many treacherous schemes were now working in the 
minds of rebellious Catholics and showing themselves 



306 Sir Philip Sidney. [1584- 

in conspiracies like the one presently to be led by 
Babington. The new law required all Jesuits, semi- 
nary priests, and other priests to quit the kingdom 
within forty days, on pain of being dealt with as 
traitors if they remained ; it declared any who har- 
boured or relieved these recusants to be felons, 
worthy of fine and imprisonment ; and it outlawed 
every clergyman residing in a foreign seminary who 
did not within six months return to England and 
make humble submission. 

Sidney's well-grounded hatred of the political de- 
signs of the foreign Catholics, suborned by many in 
England, which caused him to urge on the Queen the 
duty of taking up her rightful position as Defendress 
of the Faith and, as Fulke Greville said, to effect "a 
safe unvizarding of this masked triplicity between 
Spain, Rome and the Jesuitical faction of France," 
explains, if it does not justify, his participation in 
the Puritan bigotry of the day. But it is not pleas- 
ant to reflect that he was personally a gainer by some 
of the fines and forfeitures prescribed for recusant 
Catholics. 

An important part of the political problem with 
which Sidney and his friends were confronted, and 
which they aimed at solving, had to do with Scot- 
land. He appears to have been less interested in 
the affairs of Queen Mary and King James, and their 
rival partisans and betrayers, than in Low Country 
concerns ; yet he could not but be mixed up in these 
also, and he was one of the many dupes of an arch- 
plotter among the Scotsmen of the day. 

Queen Mary, who had been a prisoner in England 



1585] Scottish Affairs. 307 

for eighteen years, was now, in desperation, giving 
more heed than heretofore to the revolutionary 
efforts of her supporters. Her disagreeable son, too, 
who all through this time had borne the title of 
king, was now more than ever being played with by 
rival sections of his followers, and was growing 
restive under their control. The Earls of Arran and 
Lennox having been King James's chief favourites 
since 1580, the Earl of Gowrie and others had in 
1582 captured him at Ruthven and imprisoned or 
banished their rivals. After a year's feigned liking 
of his position, King James had broken loose from 
his guardians and reinstated the Arran faction. 
Thereupon, in September, 1583, Sir Francis Wal- 
singham had been sent to inquire into the state of 
matters. His report was to the effect that Queen 
Elizabeth had formed a true estimate of her kins- 
man's character ; King James was ready at any 
moment to requite kindness with ingratitude ; every- 
where he was misliked for his dissimulation and 
treachery ; and now the captive Queen his mother, 
ever the chief author of trouble, had half persuaded 
him to change his religion, promising him the sup- 
port of a large party in England and the willing aid 
of Spain. Walsingham considered that he had done 
something to lessen the threatened dangers by ex- 
tracting pledges from James and weakening Arran's 
influence over him. 

Thus matters stood in 1584, when we first get 
trace of Sidney's connection with Scottish politics. 
About Queen Mary's or her friends' conspiracies, 
and King James's plots for succession to the rule of 



308 Sir Philip Sidney. [1584- 

England on Queen Elizabeth's demise, Sir Philip 
does not appear to have much troubled himself until 
there was a revival of the old fear that the Scottish 
plotters would obtain substantial help from Spain. 
Then he was stirred to action. Through his old 
friend Edward Wotton, who had been his fellow- 
student at Vienna ten years before, and was now 
ambassador in Scotland, he obtained information 
from the northern capital ; and he was in close inter- 
course with Patrick, sixth Lord Gray, better known 
as the Master of Gray, who in 1584 paid a long visit 
to London with the ostensible object of arranging 
an alliance between King James and Queen Eliza- 
beth from which Queen Mary was to be excluded. 

This Master of Gray was accounted one of the 
handsomest men of the time, skilled in all the arts 
and graces of courtiership. Though few then knew 
it, he was as unscrupulous as he was clever, a man 
who shrank from no trickery and meanness, betray- 
ing every one who trusted him, and cared for 
nothing but his own advancement. For some time 
a creature of the Earl of Arran, he cheated Arran as 
readily as he cheated Gowrie and all the rest of 
King James's advisers. Professing himself a hater 
of Papists, he was a Catholic in so far as he had any 
religion. Unfortunately, though thence came no 
great harm to the State or to Sidney himself, he 
deceived Sidney along with men of longer and wider 
experience in statesmanship. 

In nearly every letter that the Master of Gray, 
after his return to Scotland, wrote to his other 
friends in London, as well as to Sidney, he sent 



1585] The Master of Gray. 309 

some affectionate message to Sir Philip. " I com- 
mend me heartily unto you," we read in one, " and 
will you do the same to all my friends in my name, 
but chiefly to Sir Philip Sidney. Pray him do ac- 
cording to the postscript in my letter ; for in that 
stands my weal, and otherwise my overthrow." The 
postscript is missing. It probably referred to the 
efforts to prevent King James from joining the 
Spanish league, about which Sidney was more eager 
than any one else, and in which the Master of Gray 
pretended to be his ally. 

It was doubtless at the Master of Gray's instiga- 
tion that Sidney took the lead in procuring from 
Queen Elizabeth an offer of a pension to King 
James if he would hold aloof from King Philip's 
schemes. On the 23d of May, 1585, Walsingham 
wrote by his son-in-law's advice to impress upon 
Wotton the importance of thus working upon the 
Scotch king's greed ; " but," said the prudent Secre- 
tary, " you must be cautious how you broach the 
subject, lest the smallness of the sum allowed by her 
Majesty do more harm than good." The sum was 
so small that Wotton deemed it best not even to 
broach the subject at all. There were other ways of 
propitiating the monarch's little mind. In June the 
Queen sent him a present of horses, most beautiful 
in shape and bearing, and we are told that he 
mounted and managed them to the great content- 
ment both of himself and of his courtiers.* 

* Much fuller information than I have thought it necessary to 
repeat about Sidney's relations with the Scottish Court, the subject 
being of small importance, will be found in the " Scottish Correspon- 
dence " in the Record Office. 



310 Sir Philip Sidney. [1584- 

Sidney now held as influential a position among 
Queen Elizabeth's advisers as was possible to one 
moving, with no dignified office, among officials 
whose high rank and great responsibility were over- 
ruled by their mistress's whims. " Sorry I am," 
wrote Walsingham to William Davison, the ambas- 
sador to the Netherlands, concerning the question 
that to both of them was of supreme importance, 
" sorry I am to see the course that is taken in this 
weighty cause ; for we will neither help these poor 
countries ourselves nor yet suffer others to do it." 
Then he went on to deplore the underhand policy of 
those in chief authority, and the great discredit that 
must ensue, not only to the State, but also to her 
Majesty, " as never a wise man that seeth it and 
loveth her, but lamenteth it from the bottom of his 
heart." 

Though Sidney was not formally installed as the 
Earl of Warwick's colleague in the Mastership of 
the Ordnance until the 2 1st of July, 1585, the duties 
had more and more devolved upon him, and he 
found much embarrassment in having responsibility 
without authority assigned to him. On the 13th of 
May he received a letter from Lord Burghley, in 
which he was blamed for having spoken too plainly 
to the Queen about the destitute condition of the 
stores, and thus brought a scolding on the great 
Lord Treasurer himself. " I will not fail on Monday 
morning," he wrote back on the same day, " to wait 
at the Tower for the performance of her Majesty's 
commandments therein. Your lordship, in the post- 
script, writes of her Majesty's being informed of 



1585] As Master of the Ordnance, 311 

great wants and faults in the office, wherewith her 
Majesty seemeth to charge your lordship for lack of 
reformation more than your lordship doth deserve. 
For my part, I have ever so conceived. But, because 
your lordship writes it particularly to me, who of 
that office am driven to have speech of her Majesty, 
I desire, for truth's sake, especially to satisfy your 
lordship, if perhaps your lordship conceive any doubt 
of me therein. Indeed, having in my speech not once 
gone beyond these limits, to acknowledge, as I could 
not deny, the present poverty of her Majesty's store, 
and therein to excuse my lord of Warwick, as in 
conscience I might and in duty I ought to do, with- 
out further aggravating anything against any man 
living ; for I cannot, not having been acquainted 
with the proceedings." The grammatical faulti- 
ness of that sentence only brings out more clearly 
the thoughts that Sir Philip was too courteous to 
put in words. A postscript followed : " Her Ma- 
jesty did not once name your lordship nor any be- 
longing to the office, but Sir William Pelham, who, 
her Majesty said, did lay all the fault on my lord of 
Warwick's deputy " — Sidney himself ; " whereupon 
I only answered that the money neither my lord nor 
any of his had ever dealt with." 

It was quite necessary for Sidney to keep the 
Queen informed as to the lack of fighting material 
and even of what little money she permitted tc 
be spent in improving it. The time had at length 
come when the assistance so often asked for by the 
Netherlanders from England could not further be 
delayed. 



312 Sir Philip Sidney. [1584- 

In the spring of 1585. deputies from the Low 
Countries presented themselves in Paris and be- 
sought King Henry and the Queen-Mother to pro- 
tect them from utter overthrow by Spain. Antwerp 
had been undergoing a siege by the Duke of Parma 
since the previous June, and there seemed small 
prospect of its holding out much longer without 
help from France or some other nation. From the 
French sovereigns the Dutch delegates received 
rough treatment, and they soon saw, as it was 
intended they should see, that no help was to be 
looked for in that quarter. Therefore they turned 
to Elizabeth, and reached London on the 26th of 
June. 

On Tuesday, the 29th, they had audience of her 
Majesty at Greenwich. In an eloquent address their 
spokesman implored her to rescue them from the 
tyranny and servitude aimed at by Philip of Spain, 
and to preserve for them those liberties, rights, and 
privileges they had been so painfully defending ; and 
they humbly tendered to her the sovereignty of the 
United Provinces, if she would aid them by doing a 
work right royal and most magnificent, acceptable to 
God, profitable to all Christendom, and worthy of 
immortal fame. The proffered sovereignty was at 
once declined ; but in gracious terms Elizabeth prom- 
ised to assist the Netherlanders with men and money. 
Six weeks were occupied in settling details, and on 
the 1 6th of August a treaty was concluded by which 
the Queen undertook to send over an army of five 
thousand foot and a thousand horse, equipped and 
paid out of the English Exchequer, and to carry 



1585] Help for the Netherlander s. 313 

on the war against Spain until both allies agreed to 
peace-making. It was stipulated that the English 
general to be selected and two others should take 
rank and have voice in the Council of the States, 
that at the close of the war all the expenses dis- 
bursed by England should be recouped by the 
Netherlanders, and that the towns of Flushing and 
Brielle, with the castle of Rammekins, should be 
held by the Queen meanwhile as security for liquida- 
tion of the debt. 

From the first the Earl of Leicester was talked of 
as certain to be leader of the expedition, and it was 
expected that Sir Philip Sidney would have high 
rank under him as Governor of Flushing. But Sid- 
ney appears to have held aloof, partly because he 
doubted whether the post would be offered to him, 
partly because he was planning work in another 
direction. As has been noted, his opinions as to the 
right method of attacking Spain had altered. He no 
longer considered the Netherlands the best battle- 
ground for maintaining even the Netherlanders' 
cause, and he had a reasonable mistrust as to the 
sort of warfare that would be allowed or possible 
under constant interference from home. According 
to a noteworthy statement by Fulke Greville, "he 
found greatness of worth and place counterpoised by 
the arts of power and favour ; the stirring spirits sent 
abroad as fuel to keep the flame far off, and the 
effeminate made judges of danger which they feared, 
and honour which they understood not." He knew 
that Queen Elizabeth and Lord Burghley were honest 
in their wish to help the cause of European liberty; 



314 Sir Philip Sidney. [1584- 

" yet," says the same trustworthy informant, " he 
perceived her governors to sit at home in their soft 
chairs, playing fast and loose with those that ven- 
tured their lives abroad." He was anxious to em- 
bark on an enterprise by which, as he wisely judged, 
and as events proved, a more effective blow might 
be struck at Spain than could come from any fight- 
ing in the Low Countries, and one in which he would 
be too well out of reach for any arm-chair governors 
to play fast and loose with him. 

This was no hasty notion. The part he took in 
the sending out of Raleigh's second Virginian expe- 
dition has already been mentioned. That expedition 
left England in April, 1585 ; and with Ralph Lane, 
who went out as governor of the young colony, it is 
clear that Sidney had fully discussed further projects. 
Lane had not been long in Virginia before he wrote 
thus, on the 12th of August, to his friend: "We 
have, by our dwelling upon the islands of St. John 
and Hispaniola for the space of five weeks, so dis- 
covered the forces thereof, with the infinite riches of 
the same, as that I find it an attempt most honour- 
able, feasible and profitable, and only fit for yourself 
to be chief commander in. This entry would so gall 
the King of Spain as it would direct his forces, that 
he troubleth your part of Christendom with, into 
these parts, where he cannot greatly annoy us with 
them. And how greatly a small force would garboil 
him here, when two of his most richest and strongest 
islands took alarms at us, not only landing, but 
dwelling upon them with only a hundred and twenty 
men ! I refer it to your judgment. Finding, by my 



1585] His West Indian Project. 315 

own view, his force at hand to be so mean, and his 
terror made so great amongst those in England, con- 
sidering that the reputation thereof doth altogether 
grow from the mines of his treasure, and the same in 
places which we see here are so easy both to be taken 
and kept by any small force sent by her Majesty, I 
could not but write these ill-fashioned lines unto 
you, and to exhort you, my noble general, by occa- 
sion not to refuse the good opportunity of such 
service to the Church of Christ of great relief from 
many calamities that this treasure in the Spaniards' 
hands doth inflict unto the members thereof — very 
honourable and fit for yourself to be the enter- 
priser of." 

This letter, if it was seen by Sidney at all, could 
not have reached him before he had abandoned for 
a time, and as it proved for ever, his intention of 
taking personal share in the conquest of the Spanish 
settlements in the West Indies ; but it helps us to 
see what the project was with which he was busy 
during the spring and summer months of 1585, before 
and after Queen Elizabeth's treaty of the 16th of 
August with the Netherlanders. In those months, 
besides giving much thought and all the money he 
could spare out of his own scanty resources, he in- 
duced thirty gentlemen of his acquaintance to sub- 
scribe £ 100 apiece towards fitting out a fleet powerful 
enough to act vigorously against Spain. " To mar- 
tial men," we are told by Fulke Greville, " he opened 
wide the door of sea and land for fame and conquest ; 
to the nobly ambitious, the far stage of America to 
win honour in ; to the religious divines, besides a 



3 16 Sir Philip Sidney. L1584- 

new apostolical calling of the lost heathen to the 
Christian faith, a large field of reducing poor Chris- 
tians, misled by the idolatry of Rome, to their primi- 
tive Mother Church ; to the ingeniously industrious, 
variety of natural riches for new mysteries and 
manufactures to work upon ; to the merchants, with 
a simple people, a fertile and unexhausted earth ; 
to the fortune-bound, liberty ; to the curious, a 
fruitful womb of invention." 

In that bold and brilliant project Sidney obtained 
the co-operation of Sir Francis Drake, who had 
returned in 1580 from his famous voyage round the 
world in the Golden Hind. Not with one little ship 
alone, but with five and twenty, and with a party of 
more than two thousand officers, soldiers, and sea- 
men, the new enterprise was to be started. It is 
probable that Drake contributed at least half the 
labour by which the scheme was developed, and, as 
Sidney had good reason for expecting that the 
Queen, if she knew of it beforehand, would forbid 
his sailing with the fleet, the expedition was an- 
nounced to be under Drake's sole leadership. But 
it was privately arranged that, as soon as they had 
left Plymouth behind them, Sidney and Drake should 
have equal authority, an important post being as- 
signed to Fulke Greville, whose participation in the 
plot was also to be kept secret until the last moment. 

Thus matters were proceeding when the Dutch 
delegates arrived in England, and while the treaty 
with them was being negotiated. It is doubtful 
whether, on there being a prospect that he would be 
sent to Flushing, Sidney thought of leaving Drake 



1585] In Partnership with Drake. 317 

to sail alone. If so, the Flushing appointment not 
being at once or for some while given to him, he 
reverted to his original plan. Drake may have at 
first intended loyally to share with Sidney the man- 
agement of the business which they had planned 
together ; but he no sooner saw a chance of the sole 
command devolving upon him than he resolved to 
play a treacherous game. 

The fleet was all but ready to leave Plymouth by 
the end of August, and Drake then sent word to 
Sidney that they were waiting for him to join them. 
Sidney and Greville hurried down, rinding excuse 
for the journey in the fact that Don Antonio, a 
feeble claimant for the crown of Portugal which 
Philip of Spain had usurped, and an old acquaint- 
ance of Sidney's, was expected at Plymouth. Their 
avowed intention was to meet Don Antonio and to 
escort him back to London. When they reached 
Plymouth, however, Drake, while making great show 
of friendship, was in no hurry to set sail. Day after 
day the departure was postponed on frivolous excuses, 
and, at length Sidney, although " not apt to dis- 
credit others," as Greville says, seeing " some sparks 
of false fire breaking out from his yoke-fellow daily," 
was induced to share Greville's earlier formed sus- 
picion as to Drake's honesty. It was afterwards 
placed beyond doubt that Drake, after waiting a few 
days in the hope that Sidney would be recalled with- 
out his intervention, caused a message to be con- 
veyed stealthily to the Court at Nonsuch, informing 
the Queen of her courtier's intention to run away. 

On the receipt of this news the Queen instantly 



318 Sir Philip Sidney. [1584- 

had three letters written ; one to Sidney, command- 
ing his immediate return ; one to Drake, threatening 
him with her eternal displeasure if he allowed Sidney 
to accompany him ; the third to the mayor of 
Plymouth, bidding him see that her orders were 
obeyed. But Sidney was prepared for the emer- 
gency. A friend at Court warned him of the de- 
spatch of these letters, and the messenger bearing 
them was met four miles from Plymouth by a couple 
of Sidney's henchmen, disguised as sailors, who 
purloined the letters. " The bruit runneth on stilts 
in London, and amongst many courtiers," wrote a 
gossip from Nonsuch on the 12th of September, 
" that Sir Francis is gone and Sir Philip too." * 
Even Sidney's father-in-law was misled and in the 
dark. " Sir Philip," Walsingham wrote on the 13th 
of September, " hath taken a very hard resolution to 
accompany Sir Francis Drake on his voyages, moved 
thereto for that he saw that her Majesty was disposed 
to commit the charge of Flushing unto some other ; 
which he reputeth would fall out greatly to his dis- 
grace, to see another preferred before him, both for 
birth and judgment inferior unto him. The despair 
thereof and the disgrace, that he doubted he should 
receive, have carried him into a different course." 

Drake left Plymouth on the 14th of September, 
having for one of his chief officers Captain Christo- 
pher Carleill, a young veteran in naval enterprise, 
who had lately married Mary Walsingham, Sir 

* BelvoirMSS.; John Stanhope to the Earl of Rutland. This 
letter and others confirm the strange narrative given in great detail 
by Fulke Greville. 



1685] The Queen and Her Courtier. 319 

Philip Sidney's sister-in-law. Sidney, however, did 
not go with the party. Intelligence as to the trick 
played on her first messenger having reached the 
Queen in time, she despatched another and more 
imperious mandate, and care was taken that it should 
be properly conveyed. It was delivered into Sir 
Philip's own hands by a peer of the realm, as Fulke 
Greville tells us, and it carried with it " in the one 
hand grace, in the other thunder." The thunder 
was a threat that, if Sidney quitted the Court in this 
way, he should never again be admitted to the 
Queen's presence. The grace was that he should 
have employment under his uncle in the Low Coun- 
tries. Thereat, we are told, he was in no way 
pleased ; but " the confluence of reason, the tran- 
scendency of power, and the fear of staying the 
whole fleet," made him immediately give way. 

This episode is not creditable to Sir Philip Sidney. 
The trickery to which he resorted, and in which he 
was foiled, was by no one in those days considered 
undignified or dishonest. But in the fact that he 
should have been driven to such straits and such 
expedients in his anxiety to do good work for his 
country, instead of longer dangling about the Court, 
we have an illustration of the unhealthy conditions 
by which the chivalry of the Elizabethan age was 
hampered. 

Sailing without his partner, Drake spent nine and a 
half months in his memorable sea-crusade against the 
Spanish power in the West Indies and nearer home, 
thereby so far arousing King Philip's wrath that 
King Philip straightway planned the great Armada 



320 



Sir Philip Sidney. 



[1585 



which was wrecked in 1588, and the ruin of which 
weakened Spain for ever. 

Sir Philip Sidney made his peace with Queen 
Elizabeth at Nonsuch on the 21st of September. On 
the 7th of November she signed at Westminster a 
patent appointing him Governor of Flushing and of 
Rammekins ; Sir Thomas Cecil, eldest son of Lord 
Burghley and Sidney's senior by a dozen years, be- 
ing nominated to the humbler post of Governor of 
Brielle, and the Earl of Leicester being commissioned 
as Lord Lieutenant for the Queen of England and 
Commander-in-chief of her forces in the Low Coun- 
tries. 




pill 

CENTRAL TOWERS, NONSUCH HOUSE. 




CHAPTER XVII. 

IN THE LOW COUNTRIES. 

I 585—1586. 

£s5S3 3^||N Tuesday, the 16th of Novem- 
^Tf^^ IS ber, 1585, Sir Philip Sidney, ac- 

Jm , B Vfl companied by young William 

3| . B ^j Temple as his private secretary, 

p j left Gravesend to enter on his 
^^^ 0W duties as Governor of Flushing 
Sa ®**-^ and Rammekins. 
If he still regretted not having been allowed to 
take part with Sir Francis Drake in a more daring 
and more deadly attack on Spanish power than 
seemed to him possible in the Netherlands, there 
was in his present employment much to hope for and 
to aim at. Not yet quite one and thirty years of age, 
he now had an opportunity of fighting in defence, 
not only of the hardly treated Dutchmen, but also 
of the whole cause of political and religious liberty 
which it was the dream of his life to aid. It was 
his first opportunity of putting to serious test, and 

321 



322 Sir Philip Sidney. [1585- 

devoting to grave issues, the prowess and skill that 
hitherto he had shown merely in mimic warfare at 
joust and tournament ; and a prospect of chivalrous 
work in other ways as well as in mere fighting opened 
before him as he crossed the Narrow Seas and ap- 
proached the Scheldt, the entrance of which was 
guarded to the north by Flushing, on the island of 
Walcheren, and by the neighbouring castle of Ram- 
mekins. 

The prospect was quickly darkened, and soon alto- 
gether destroyed. All was not bright even on land- 
ing. " Upon Thursday," he wrote from Flushing to 
his uncle, who was to follow three weeks later with 
most of the troops, Sidney taking with him only a 
small escort and a parcel of gold, — " upon Thursday 
we came into this town, driven to land at Rammekins 
because the wind began to rise in such sort as our 
mariners durst not anchor before the town, and from 
thence came with as dirty a walk as ever poor gov- 
ernor entered his charge withal." But that was a 
small matter. " I find the people very glad of our 
coming and promise myself as much surety in keep- 
ing this town as popular good will, gotten by light 
hope and as light conceits, may breed ; for, indeed, 
the garrison is far too weak to command by authority ; 
which is pity. For how great a jewel this place is 
to the Crown of England, and the Queen's safety, I 
need not write to your lordship who knows it so 
well. Yet I must needs say, the better I know it, 
the more I find the preciousness of it." 

That letter was written on Monday, the 22d, 
after Sidney had been but four days in Flushing; 



1586] Flushing and its Governor, 323 

yet already he had made plans for strengthening the 
defences, and for gradually correcting abuses in ways 
calculated to avoid " breeding jealousies in this peo- 
ple, which is carried more by shows than substance." 
" I am more and more persuaded," he added, " that, 
with the proportion which her Majesty alloweth, the 
country is fully able to maintain the wars, if what 
they do be well ordered, and not abused, as it is by 
the States ; it being strange that the people show 
themselves far more careful than the governors in 
all things touching the public welfare." Yet the 
citizens were down-hearted. " I think truly, if my 
coming had been longer delayed, some alteration 
would have followed ; for the truth is, the people is 
weary of war, and if they do not see such a course 
taken as may be likely to defend them, they will on 
a sudden give over the cause." 

Having on Sunday taken formal possession of his 
office and exchanged the requisite oaths with the 
magistrates of the town — the States or Estates, as 
they were called, — Sir Philip, continuing his arrange- 
ments and preparations the while, awaited his uncle's 
coming. The Earl of Leicester reached Flushing 
on the 10th of December, with the bulk of his little 
English army, and a throng of gay and gallant fol- 
lowers ; among them Sidney's old rival, the Earl of 
Oxford, and Stella's brother, the young Earl of 
Essex, now just twenty, and Sidney's youngest 
brother, Thomas. The other brother, Robert, had 
been of Philip's party, and had been placed by him 
as his deputy in charge of Rammekins Castle. 
Count Maurice of Nassau, son and successor to the 



324 Sir Philip Sidney. [1585- 

murdered William, and many of the leading Dutch- 
men welcomed the English Lord Lieutenant. They 
escorted him to the Hague, and there were splendid 
entertainments on the way as the company passed 
through Middelburg, and Dordrecht, and Rotterdam, 
and Delft. 

At the Hague and elsewhere Leicester maintained 
almost royal state, wasting in idle shows both the 
impoverished exchequer of the Netherlanders and 
the money brought from England, while there was 
the utmost need of prompt action against the Duke 
of Parma and his Spanish garrisons.* The climax 
was reached when, on New Year's Day, 1586, a 
deputation waited upon him and proposed that, in 
addition to his humbler office of Lord Lieutenant 
under the Queen of England, he should accept title 
and rank as Governor-General of the United Prov- 
inces, with supreme authority in all military and 
civil affairs, and almost greater power than had ever 
been accorded to William of Orange. That offer 
his vanity led him to accept, in contempt of Eliza- 
beth's instructions, and the news of his having done 
so only reached England some weeks later and by a 
roundabout course. Thereupon ensued one of the 
quarrels that were frequent between the Queen and 
her unruly favourite. After prevaricating and for a 

* One of the letters that Sidney wrote to his father-in-law was for- 
warded, as he said, by " Will, my lord of Leicester's jesting player." 
It has been rashly suggested that "Will" was Shakespeare. He 
may have been William Kemp, a noted comedian in " the Earl of 
Leicester's company." Whoever he was, it is significant that 
Leicester, going over ostensibly to fight the Spaniards, should have 
found it necessary to have players to amuse him in the Netherlands. 



«586] Leicester as Lord Lieutenant. 325 

time defying his mistress, Leicester wrote humbly 
to surrender everything and to beg for his recall to 
Court. " Here," he said, " I can do your Majesty 
no service. There I can do you some, at least rub 
your horse's heels, a service which shall be more 
welcome to me than this, with all that these men 
can give me." More than one such appeal had to 
be made before her Majesty was appeased, and 
returned to her old-womanish dalliance. Leicester 
might be her " Sweet Robin " again, she at length 
sent word ; and, hard as she found it to be so long 
without him, she would suffer him, for the good of 
the Netherlands and of Europe, to retain his post as 
her Lord Lieutenant until he had won glory for 
himself and her by crushing the Spanish foe. 

While this farce was being played out and suc- 
ceeded by other follies on the part of his uncle, 
Sidney vainly endeavoured to forward the work that 
had to be done, and was being made harder by 
each day's delay. Antwerp had fallen into the Duke 
of Parma's hands on the 17th of August, 1585, and 
the Spaniards had since been making other encroach- 
ments on the Netherlanders. If the speedy recovery 
of Antwerp was not to be hoped for, it was the duty 
of the English expedition to keep the enemy at bay 
and drive them back as far and as fast as possible. 
Flushing being the key to the Scheldt, so long as it 
was held no Spanish reinforcements could reach 
Antwerp by sea, and Sidney's primary task was, as 
its governor, to retain firm possession of it. He 
wanted to do that and much else ; but his efforts 
were frustrated at every turn, not only by the 



326 Sir Philip Sidney. [1585- 

apathy and meanness of many of his Dutch associ- 
ates, but yet more by his uncle's recklessness and 
frivolity, and by the neglect and niggardliness of the 
home authorities. Each letter that he wrote during 
more than eight months was laden with just com- 
plaints, and showed alike the straits to which he was 
reduced, and the wise and generous views that he 
was not suffered to carry out. Let a few instances 
be given. 

" We want supplies exceedingly," Sir Philip wrote 
to his father-in-law, on the 14th of December, when 
he had been three weeks at his post. " I am in a 
garrison which is as much able to command Flushing 
as the Tower is to answer for London ; and, for 
aught I can learn, it is hardly to be redressed. I 
mean truly, if I cannot have it helped here, to write 
a protestation thereof to her Majesty, and to the 
Lords of the Council, as a thing that I can no way 
take upon me to answer, if I be not increased at the 
least by four hundred men more than yet I have." In 
the same letter he pleaded for the soldiers who were 
being defrauded. " The treasurer " — who was Lord 
Norris — " here pays our Zeeland soldiers in Zeeland 
money, which is five per cent, loss to the poor 
soldiers, who, God knows, want no such hindrances, 
being scarce able to keep life with their entire 
pay. If the commodity thereof be truly answered 
the Queen, yet truly is it but a poor increase 
to her Majesty, considering what loss it is to the 
miserable soldier. But if private lucre be made, it 
hath too hurtful a proportion of other such abuses 
here." 



1586] Appeals and Protests. 327 

" It grieves me very much," he wrote six weeks 
later, on the 2d of February, 1586, " the soldiers are 
so hardly dealt with in your first beginning of gov- 
ernment. When soldiers grow to despair, and give 
up towns, then it is late to buy that with hundred 
thousands which might have been saved with a trifle." 
More reproachful was another letter sent to Leices- 
ter, on the 1 2th of February, from Rotterdam. 
" Here are no news," he wrote, with proper sarcasm, 
" but that your band is of very handsome men, but 
unarmed, and merely spending money and time to 
no purpose." 

Yet another and a more urgent letter was written 
a week afterwards, while Leicester was fretting over 
his quarrel with the Queen. " The enemy stirs on 
every side, and your side must not be idle ; for, if 
it be, it quickly loseth reputation. I beseech your 
Excellency, be not discouraged by the Queen's dis- 
contentments ; for, the event being good, your glory 
will shine through those mists. Only, if it please 
you, have daily counsel taken of your means, how 
to increase them and how to husband them ; and 
when all is said, if they can serve, we shall make a 
noble war." 

In doing his share towards making a " noble war," 
Sidney went more than once to the Hague, there 
to appeal in person to his uncle. He was often in 
other Dutch towns, putting pressure on the local 
authorities. He even, in March, made an excursion 
into Germany, where he induced some of his friends 
to help the Netherlanders with recruits. He also 
addressed earnest petitions to Lord Burghley. " I 



328 Sir Philip Sidney. [1585- 

beseech your lordship," he wrote on the 18th of 
March, " give your hand to sending over the moneys, 
or there will be some terrible incident follow to the 
caution towns," — that is, to Flushing, and to Brielle, 
the key to Rotterdam on the Maas, just as Flushing 
was to Antwerp on the Scheldt — which towns were 
to be held in pawn until the cost of English assist- 
ance was repaid. 

One especially characteristic letter was addressed 
to Sir Francis Walsingham on the 24th of March. 
Sidney excused himself for distressing his father-in- 
law by his complaints and entreaties to the Queen 
and her ministers. " I think," he wrote, " such is 
the good will it pleaseth you to bear me that my 
part of the trouble is something that troubles you. 
But, I beseech you, let it not. I had before cast my 
count of danger, want and disgrace ; and, before 
God, sir, it is true in my heart, the love of the cause 
doth so far overbalance them all, that, with God's 
grace, they shall never make me weary of my resolu- 
tion. If her Majesty were the fountain, I would 
fear, considering what I daily find, that we should 
wax dry. But she is but a means whom God useth ; 
and, I know not whether I am deceived, but I am 
faithfully persuaded that, if she should withdraw 
herself, other springs would rise to help the action ; 
for methinks I see the great work indeed in hand 
against the abusers of the world, wherein it is no 
greater fault to have confidence in man's power than 
it is too hastily to despair of God's work. I think a 
wise and constant man ought never to grieve while 
he doth play, as a man may say, his own part truly, 



15861 Prepared for the Worst. 329 

though others be out ; but if he himself leave his 
hold because other mariners will be idle, he will 
hardly forgive himself his own fault. For me, I 
cannot promise of my own course, because I know 
there is a higher power must uphold me, or else I 
shall fall ; but certainly I trust I shall not by other 
men's wants be drawn from myself. Therefore, good 
sir, to whom, for my particular, I am more bound 
than to all men besides, be not troubled with my 
troubles, for I have seen the worst, in my judgment, 
beforehand, and worse than that cannot be. If the 
Queen pay not her soldiers, she must lose her garri- 
sons. There is no doubt thereof. But no man 
living shall be able to say the fault is in me. What 
relief I can do them, I will. I will spare no danger, 
if occasion serves. I am sure no creature shall be 
able to lay injustice to my charge ; and for further 
doubts, truly I stand not upon them." 

" I understand I am called very ambitious and 
proud at home, but certainly if they knew my heart 
they would not altogether so judge me," Sidney 
wrote in this letter. Ambition and pride he had, 
but both of the right sort. He had tenderness, too, 
and humour. " We shall have a sore war upon us 
in the summer," he added. " I know not what to 
say to my wife's coming till you resolve better ; for, 
if you" — that is, the English authorities — "run a 
strange course, I may take such an one here as may 
not be fit for any one of the feminine gender." Very 
soon after the receipt of this letter Lady Sidney 
did go to the Netherlands, and she lived at Flushing 
while her husband was away in battle or other occu- 



330 Sir Philip Sidney. [1585- 

pation not " fit for any one of the feminine gender." 
Two months later Sidney wrote from Utrecht to tell 
Walsingham that he was presently returning to 
Flushing, " where I hear that your daughter is very 
well and merry." 

Sidney was not able to take part in any important 
fighting until July. 

He had vainly besought Leicester on the 2d of 
February to support him in a project for besieging 
Steenbergen, near the western extremity of North 
Brabant, which was then held by a Spanish force, 
and of thus diverting from Grave, on the eastern 
side of the province, the fierce attack that was being 
made by the Duke of Parma upon its garrison of 
Netherlander. " With two thousand of your foot- 
men, besides them that these quarters may spare, 
and three hundred of your horse, with them here- 
about," he wrote, " I will undertake, upon my life, 
either to win Steenbergen, or to make the enemy 
raise his siege from Grave, or, which I most hope, 
both. If God will, I will do you honour in it." The 
supplies he asked for were not granted, and he pro- 
ceeded against Steenbergen with such troops as 
he could collect ; but a sudden thaw delayed his 
movements, and he was not allowed to persevere in 
them. Although on the 6th of April Count Hohenlo 
and Sir John Norris, Lord Norris's elder son, drove 
off the besiegers of Grave and gave temporary relief 
to that " strongest town in all the Low Countries, 
though but a little one," as the strategists of the 
day considered, it was won by Parma on the 7th of 
June. 



1586] Kept in the Background. 331 

Count Hohenlo, generally called Hollock by the 
English, was a dashing warrior, able to do good 
work when he was sober ; but his drunken habits 
rendered him untrustworthy. On that account, if 
on no other, there was good reason for not assigning 
to him any place of permanent responsibility. But 
he was jealous of Sir Philip Sidney, and wheti in 
February Sidney was appointed colonel of the Zee- 
land regiment of horse, and thus placed in an office 
that would give him increased opportunities for 
adding fighting work to his government of Flushing, 
Count Hohenlo, who wanted the post for himself, 
protested on the ground that " no stranger might 
have any regiment." Queen Elizabeth, strange to 
say, took Hohenlo's part. Walsingham wrote to tell 
Leicester how angry she was at Sidney's preferment. 
" She layeth the blame on Sir Philip, as a thing by 
him ambitiously sought. I see her Majesty very apt 
upon every light occasion to find fault with him." 
It would appear that now, as on former occasions, 
Sir Philip was made the whipping-boy for his uncle's 
offences against her Majesty. After Elizabeth had 
forgiven Leicester for wanting to be Governor-Gen- 
eral of the United Provinces, she was still angry 
with Sidney, whom she unjustly suspected of being 
one of " the chief actors and persuaders in the 
matter," and she was all the more angry because 
Sidney sent home troublesome appeals for money 
and stores, and bold complaints when these were 
not supplied. Leicester, being restored to the 
Queen's favour, humoured her. Therefore Sidney 
was kept in the background. 



332 Sir Philip Sidney. [1585- 

His first chance of distinguishing himself was in 
the capture of Axel on the 7th of July, and that was 
only sanctioned by the Earl of Leicester on Count 
Maurice insisting that the task of leading it should 
be assigned to none but his friend Sir Philip. 

Axel, about twenty miles from Flushing, on the 
southern side of the Scheldt, was a strongly fortified 
town in the hands of the Spaniards. After Grave 
had been lost, and while other Dutch positions were 
being surrendered, Sidney and Maurice agreed be- 
tween them that a blow must, at all hazards, be 
struck at the enemy, if only to revive the flagging 
spirits of the Netherlanders ; and they resolved that 
this could in no way be done so effectively, should 
it prove successful, as by a dash at Axel. 

On the moonless night of Tuesday, the 6th of 
July, a thousand soldiers, in boats, met in front of 
Flushing, five hundred being of Sir Philip's Zeeland 
regiment, under his immediate command, and five 
hundred being Englishmen under his friend Lord 
Willoughby.* They rowed up and across the 
Scheldt as far as Terneusen, where they landed 

* After his appointment to command of the Zeeland regiment 
Sidney had for a time established himself at Bergen-op-Zoom. "I 
am delighted in it, I confess, because it was near the enemy," he 
wrote to Walsingham on the 24th of March ; " but especially, having 
a very fair house in it, and an excellent air, I destined it for my wife. 
But finding how you deal there " — in England, — "and that ill-pay- 
ment in my absence thence might bring some mischief, and consider- 
ing how apt the Queen is to interpret everything to my disadvantage, 
I have resigned it to my Lord "Willoughby, my very friend, and in- 
deed a valiant and frank gentleman, and fit for that place. Therefore 
I pray you know that so much of my regality is fallen." 



1586] The Capture of Axel. 333 

and joined company with two thousand other sol- 
diers, brought hither by Count Maurice and his 
captains, of whom one was the son of Sir Christo- 
pher Hatton. Their destination was known to none 
but Count Maurice and Sir Philip. They marched 
stealthily up to Axel, encouraged on the way by a 
speech from Sir Philip which, according to the testi- 
mony of one who was present, " did so link their 
minds that they did desire rather to die in that 
service than to live in the contrary." 

Not one of them had to die. At two o'clock 
after midnight, Axel being reached, some thirty or 
forty men, headed by Sir Philip, jumped into the 
moat, swam warily across, scaled the wall, and opened 
the gate for the rest. The sleepy garrison only 
aroused itself and offered brave resistance when 
resistance was too late. By placing a band of picked 
soldiers in the market-place, to assist any of the 
straggling companies that might be too fiercely op- 
posed by the enemy, Sir Philip ensured strength to 
every section of his party, and accomplished all 
the terrible work that he and his colleagues deemed 
necessary. About half of the twelve hundred men 
garrisoning the city, besides very many burghers, 
were slain by the sword or pushed into the water. 
Five ensigns and a large quantity of rich spoil were 
taken, and property worth two million florins was 
destroyed. Four citadels in the neighbourhood were 
forced to surrender, and the dykes were cut, so that 
a vast tract of the country round about was flooded. 

Sir Philip spent ten or twelve days in seeing that 
everything was safe, and then, rewarding out of his 



334 Si r Philip Sidney. L1585- 

own purse those who had best acquitted themselves 
under him, and leaving a strong garrison in Axel, he 
joined his uncle, who was with the main body of the 
army at Arnhem. Thence Leicester wrote proudly 
and graciously to inform the Queen how " my nephew 
Sidney," and Walsingham how " your son Philip," 
was to be thanked for the bravest deed yet done by 
the English in the Low Countries. 

Philip had no other father to rejoice over the 
valour and shrewdness he had shown in this his first 
great military exploit. On the 5th of May, Sir 
Henry had died at Worcester after seven days' ill- 
ness. He wanted six weeks of being fifty-seven 
years old, and might have expected to add many 
years to the six and twenty during which, with inter- 
ruptions in Ireland and elsewhere, he had served as 
Lord President of Wales. His heart was interred at 
Ludlow, the seat of his long and worthy rule. The 
rest of his body was taken to Penshurst for burial. 
" For his death," wrote Edmund Molyneux, his some- 
time secretary, " there was great moan and lamenta- 
tion, especially by those under his government, as 
having lost that special nobleman whom for courtesy 
they loved, for justice amongst them they highly hon- 
oured, and for many other and rare gifts and singular 
virtues they in his lifetime greatly esteemed, and at 
his death marvellously bemoaned." 

Though we have many letters written by Sir 
Philip in the summer of 1586, there is none ex- 
tant in which reference is made either to the great 
loss that must have been reported to him seven or 
eight weeks before his taking of Axel, or to an- 



1586] 



His Parents Deaths, 



335 



other loss, as great or greater, of which he must have 
heard five or six weeks after the exploit. His mother 
died at Penshurst on the 9th of August, tenderly 
cared for by the friends, " not few, who loved and 
honoured her," and who were at hand to comfort 
her in her brief widowhood, and to admire the beau- 
tiful ending of her life. " Though before," says the 
same informant, concerning these friends, " they 
knew her to exceed many of her sex in singularity 
of virtue and quality — as good speech, apt and ready 
conceit, excellence of wit, and notable eloquent 
delivery (for none could match her, and few or none 
come near her, either in the good conceit and frame 
of orderly writing, inditing and speedy despatching, 
or facility of gallant, sweet, delectable and courtly 
speaking) — yet in this last action she so far sur- 
passed herself in discreet, wise, effectual, sound and 
grounded reasons, all tending to zeal and piety, as 
the same almost astonished the hearers to hear such 
plenty of goodly and pithy matters to come from 
such a creature." 

Meanwhile the worthy son of these worthy parents 
was busy with the work remaining to be done in his 
own short life. 




HEARTH IN THE OLD HALL AT PENSHURST 




CHAPTER XVIII. 



THE LAST WEEKS. 




1586. 

5jp=§§<p)HE ten weeks following the cap- 
ture of Axel were for the most 
part spent by Sir Philip Sidney 
at Flushing. But he was often 
with his uncle at or near Arn- 
hem, the handsome town built 
on the site of the old Roman 
Arecenum, on the northern bank of the Rhine, near 
the channel by which the Romans had connected 
that river with the Yssel. The Earl of Leicester 
had made Arnhem his headquarters, and Sidney was 
anxious that the success at Axel should be promptly 
followed by other attacks on the Spanish garrisons, 
with the special object of hampering the Duke of 
Parma's operations against Rheinberg and other 
places thereabout. A few desultory movements 
were made, in some of which Sidney took part. But 
nothing important was done : partly because the 
Earl of Leicester lacked all the qualities of a good 

336 



1586] More Difficulties, 337 

general and successful strategist, and relied chiefly 
on men as incapable as himself ; partly because the 
money Queen Elizabeth had promised to supply for 
carrying on the war was greatly in arrear. 

On this score Sidney continued to make frequent 
and bitter complaints, especially in respect to his 
own direct responsibilities as Governor of Flushing. 
His views were forcibly expressed in three letters 
that he wrote on the 14th of August, 1586. One 
was addressed to the Queen's Privy Council, calling 
its attention to " the weak store of all sort of neces- 
sary munition that both this town and the castle of 
Rammekins have." " The States," he said, " I have 
tried to the uttermost ; but, partly with the opinion 
it more toucheth her Majesty because it is her pawn, 
but principally because they have ever present occa- 
sion to employ both all they have and indeed much 
more upon the places nearest to the enemy, we in this 
town, and as I think, Bridle, shall still demand and 
still go without. By the grace of God, my trust is 
in Him, that my life shall discharge of blame ; but 
not I nor all that be here can perform the services 
that we owe to her Majesty without such merely 
necessary things." The second letter was addressed 
to Walsingham. " I beseech you, sir, labour for me, 
or rather for her Majesty, in it," he wrote touching 
the need of supplies. " We do still make camps and 
straight again mar them for want of means, and sc 
lose our money to no purpose." The third letter, 
also to Walsingham, and sent by another messenger, 
was intended by Sidney for his father-in-law's pri- 
vate reading and guidance. In it he spoke more 
22 



338 Sir Philip Sidney. M586 

plainly, both of the difficulties he was in and of his 
uncle's share of the blame, than he could do in a 
public communication. " I assure you, sir, this night 
we are at a fair plunge to have lost all for want of 
money. We are now four months behind, a thing 
insupportable in this place. To complain to my 
lord of Leicester you know I may not ; but this is 
the case. If once the soldiers fall to a thorough 
mutiny, this town is lost in all likelihood." 

Though he did not feel himself at liberty to com- 
plain openly to others about his uncle, Sidney did 
not shrink from complaining to him. This appears 
from the Earl of Leicester's own half confession. 
" He told me, after Sir Philip's and not long before 
his own death," says Fulke Greville, " that when he 
undertook the government of the Low Countries, he 
carried his nephew over with him, as one among the 
rest, not only despising his youth for a counsellor, 
but withal bearing a hand over him as a forward 
young man. Notwithstanding, in short time he saw 
this sun so risen above his horizon that both he and 
all his stars were glad to fetch light from him." But 
the light, if really sought at all, was only sought 
when it was too late. Sidney's share in the minor 
incidents of the mismanaged campaign need not 
be detailed ; but one episode must be mentioned as 
evidence that the want of money, the consequent 
risk of mutiny among the common soldiers, and the 
Earl of Leicester's arrogant incapacity, were not the 
only difficulties to be contended with. 

Count Hohenlo, with Sir William Pelham and 
some other friends, had planned a military excursion 



1586] Warriors at Fault. 339 

into the Spanish portion of North Brabant, to be 
made on the 6th of August, and Sidney had been 
invited to be of the party. He hurried from Flush- 
ing to Geertruidenberg with Edward Norris, the 
younger son of Lord Norris, but was too late to 
share in the sport. Perhaps it was well, since nothing 
was done beyond the wanton burning of a village 
and the killing of some boors. Sir Philip was wait- 
ing in Hohenlo's quarters when the marauders re- 
turned, and the Count, though glad to see him, was 
much displeased at the presence of his friend, the 
Pelhams and the Norrises being old enemies. He 
invited them both to supper, however, and soon 
drank himself into a quarrelling mood. Norris, also, 
knowing himself to be an unwelcome guest, was pre- 
pared for a dispute. Therefore one quickly arose. 
High words passed between the angry men, and 
Hohenlo, maddened by his potations, was not satis- 
fied with merely swearing. With the gilt lid of a 
goblet he cut open Norris's forehead, and he was 
rushing at him with a drawn dagger when Sidney 
intervened, and, with help from members of the com- 
pany who like himself had kept sober, pushed the 
Count out of the room. A few days afterwards 
Sidney was the bearer of a challenge from Norris to 
Hohenlo ; but the duel was not fought. While the 
Earl of Leicester was trying to patch up the quarrel 
the sharers in it had to be comrades on the field of 
Zutphen. 

On the 28th of August Sidney took part in a 
review of the troops at Arnhem, and he then per- 
suaded his uncle to agree to the bold movement 



340 Sir Philip Sidney. [1586 

against the enemy which had been delayed too long. 
Doesburg, a weak fortress about fifteen miles beyond 
Arnhem, and on the east side of the Yssel, was in- 
vested on the 30th. On the 2d of September it 
was taken by assault, in which, b&sides Sir Philip, 
his brother Robert and the young Earl of Essex 
distinguished themselves. The next business to be 
attempted, and a more difficult one, was the capture 
of Zutphen or South-Fen, the strongest city in Gelder- 
land, fifteen miles north of Doesburg, and well placed 
on the same side of the Yssel. Zutphen was a day's 
march from Deventer, also on the Yssel, which Sid- 
ney's Zeeland regiment was helping to protect from 
Spanish attack, although he was himself, with nearly 
all the English officers, in attendance on the Earl of 
Leicester. 

On the 13th of September Leicester encamped his 
army outside Zutphen. Crossing the Yssel with the 
main body of his infantry, he proceeded to throw up 
entrenchments and to threaten the city and its ap- 
proach from the opposite side of the river. Most of 
the cavalry were left on some rising ground, known 
as Gilbert Hill, less than a mile from the east gate 
of Zutphen and close to the pretty village of Warns- 
feld ; and the custody of this commanding situation^ 
was entrusted to Count Lewis William of Nassau, 
Sir John Norris, and Sir Philip Sidney. Thus mat- 
ters continued for a week, preparations being vigor- 
ously made for an attack, when on the 21st news 
arrived that a great quantity of provisions was on 
its way from the south, to be smuggled into Zutphen 
before daybreak next morning. 




ROBERT DEVEREUX, SECOND EARL OF ESSEX. 

FROM AN ENGRAVING IN LODGE'S "PORTRAITS." 



1586] The Fight at Zutphen. 34 1 

The spies who brought this information to 
Leicester were not aware, or did not tell him, that 
with the convoy of provisions between two and 
three thousand fighting men, the flower of Parma's 
army, were marching up to the beleaguered city ; and 
Leicester considered he had done all that was neces- 
sary in ordering Sir John Norris with two hundred 
horsemen, and Sir William Stanley with three hun- 
dred pikemen, to hold the ground between the east 
gate of Zutphen and Warnsfeld, and to intercept the 
approaching convoy. 

Sir Philip Sidney was not included in the commis- 
sion, nor were his brothers Robert and Thomas, nor 
the Earl of Essex, Lord Willoughby, Sir William 
Pelham, Sir William Perrott, Sir William Russell, 
and the other cavaliers, some fifty in all, who, as 
soon as they heard that there was fighting on hand, 
hurried up, of their own accord, to take part in it. 
Sir Philip had fully equipped himself, but, when he 
was joined by Sir William Pelham, who had not time 
to find his leg-armour, he rashly threw off his own 
cuisses that they might run equal risk. 

The morning of Thursday, the 22d of Septem- 
ber, was so misty that nothing could be seen ten 
paces off when the small English force heard the 
rumble of waggons and the tramp of horses in the 
distance. Suddenly the fog cleared, and the five or 
six hundred Englishmen found themselves con- 
fronted by five times as many Spaniards, Italians, 
and Albanians, and saw that they were within range 
both of the great guns which played from the ram- 
parts, and of the still more effective muskets handled 



342 Sir Philip Sidney. H586 

by the soldiers in the trenches. Intending to surprise 
the enemy, they had been themselves entrapped. 

An hour and a half of desperate fighting ensued. 
The Englishmen might have honourably withdrawn, 
covering their retreat as best they could. But that 
was not thought of. " For the honour of England, 
good fellows, follow me ! " shouted the young Earl 
of Essex, and dashed up to the thousand Spanish 
horsemen facing him. With him went others, and, 
soon dropping their lances, they used their curtle- 
axes with such effect that the enemy fell back for a 
time. There were notable feats of individual 
prowess. Lord Willoughby, for one — 

The brave Lord Willoughby, 

Of courage fierce and fell, 
Who would not give one inch of way, 

For all the devils of hell, 

as the old ballad describes him — spurred on till he 
was completely surrounded, and his trappings were 
being torn from him when Sidney and a few others 
broke through the ring and brought their comrade 
out. 

There were three onsets, in the course of which 
the Englishmen, losing about a fourth of their own 
number, killed thrice as many of their foes. The 
gaps in their ranks were filled by new-comers who, 
so soon as they heard and saw what was going on, 
rode up to vie with their friends in a struggle that, 
however foolhardy at the commencement — and in 
the case of Sidney, who had not been appointed 
to it, however blameworthy — had, when begun, to be 
continued. Sidney forgot or scorned the prudent 



1586] The Death- Wound. 



343 



words addressed to him eight years before by 
Hubert Languet. " Do not," Languet wrote, " give 
the glorious name of courage to a fault resembling 
it. It is the folly of our age that most men of noble 
birth think it more honourable to do the work of 
soldiers than that of leaders, and would rather be 
praised for boldness than for judgment." 

At the close of the second charge Sidney's horse 
was killed under him. He straightway mounted an- 
other and forced his way right through the enemy's 
ranks, to see bare entrenchments before him. As he 
was turning back a ball from one of the concealed 
muskets entered his left leg, at some distance above 
the knee, where the cuisse should have been, and, 
cleaving the bone, glanced upward far into the 
thigh. He would still have fought on ; but his new 
charger, not well trained to battle, took fright and 
galloped off the field. The brave rider, though 
bleeding and faint, retained his seat till he reached 
the camp, a mile and a half distant, where Leicester 
was in safety with the main body of the army. 

Then it was that, overcome with thirst, Sidney 
called for something to drink. A bottle of water 
was brought, and he hastily put it to his lips. But 
at that moment a foot-soldier was being carried past, 
and the dying man set greedy, ghastly eyes upon 
the flask. Sidney handed it to him, saying, as he 
did so, " Thy necessity is yet greater than mine." 

" Oh, Philip ! " exclaimed his uncle, " I am truly 
grieved to see thy hurt ! " " Oh, my lord," answered 
Philip, " this have I done to do you honour, and her 
Majesty some service." 



,**>. 



344 S* r Philip Sidney. [1586 

" Oh, noble Sir Philip, never did man attain hurt 
so honourably, or serve so valiantly, as you ! " cried 
Sir William Russell, himself bleeding from wounds 
he had just bravely received. But Sidney declared 
that he had only performed his duty to God and 
England, and that his life could not be better 
spent than in such an exploit as that day's. " For 
you have now such success as may encourage us 
all," he said ; " and this my hurt is the ordinance 
of God by the hap of war." 

In that temper, the wounded soldier was conveyed 
in his uncle's barge, along the Yssel and the Rhine, 
to Arnhem, quitting for ever the battle-field in 
which he had hoped to achieve so much. The 
war was waged without him, and, after a time, 
without the Earl of Leicester, whose management 
had done nothing but harm to the cause he essayed 
to help. 

Throughout five and twenty days Sir Philip Sid- 
ney lay at Arnhem, in the house of a lady named 
Gruithuissens. His wife, as soon as she heard of 
his condition, though she was far advanced in preg- 
nancy, hastened from Flushing to attend upon him. 
Nor were there wanting other anxious watchers by 
his bedside, or expressions of sympathy from those 
who were absent. His brothers, Robert and Thomas, 
both winning fame in the Netherlands, were with 
him as often as they could be spared from their 
military duties. The Earl of Leicester, moreover, 
went to Arnhem whenever he was able, to show 
real grief at his nephew's trouble, and to offer such 
words of kindly meant but hollow comfort as none 



1586] The Sick-bed at Arnhem. 345 

so well as he knew how to use. The Queen, when 
she heard of the fight at Zutphen, and its main 
incident, with her own hand wrote Sidney a com- 
forting letter, and sent it by a special messenger, 
who was ordered to return immediately with full 
information as to the sufferer's health and the 
chances of his recovery. 

The surgeons in charge of Sidney seem to have 
erred through over-tenderness or ignorance. When 
they came to him, he bade them freely cut and 
probe to the bottom of the wound. They were 
content to deal with it on the surface. " With love 
and care well mixed," says Fulke Greville, not re- 
membering that excess of love may cause lack of 
care, " they began the cure, and continued some six- 
teen days with such confidence of his recovery as 
the joy of their hearts overflowed their discretion, 
and made them spread the intelligence of it to the 
Queen and all his noble friends in England, where 
it was received not as private but as public news." 
" All the worst days be passed, as both surgeons 
and physicians have informed me," Leicester wrote 
to Walsingham on the 2d of October, the tenth day, 
" and he amends as well as is possible in this time ; 
and he himself finds it, for he sleeps and rests- well, 
and hath a good stomach to eat." 

But Sidney himself was at no time sanguine. On 
being removed from Zutphen, he was heard to whis- 
per thanks to God for not taking him at once, but 
rather leaving him a little space in which to prepare 
for death. On the 30th of September he sent for 
his friend George Gifford, an eminent divine, who 



346 Sir Philip Sidney. [1586 

wrote an interesting if over-wrought account of the 
sick-bed experiences. " Although he had professed 
the Gospel, loved and favoured those that did em- 
brace it, entered deeply into the concerns of the 
Church, taken good order and very good care for his 
family and soldiers to be instructed and to be brought 
to live accordingly," says GifTord, " yet, entering 
into deep examination of his life now, in the time of 
his affliction, he felt those inward motions and work- 
ings of a spirit exciting him to a deep sorrow for his 
former conduct." He professed grief and repentance 
at much that he had done, and much that he had 
failed to do, in his short life. "All things in my 
former life have been vain, vain, vain," he declared ; 
and he asked that " The Arcadia " might be de- 
stroyed. 

He wrote a short poem, " La Cuisse Rompue," 
which was set to music, and sung to him. He also 
wrote to his learned friend Belarius, " a large epistle, 
in very pure and eloquent Latin," a copy of which, 
we are told, " for the excellency of the phrase, and 
the fittingness of the matter," was transmitted to 
Queen Elizabeth. Neither letter nor poem remains 
for us to read. 

On the 30th of September he made his will, to 
which a codicil was added a fortnight later. This 
document, as Fulke Greville considered, "will ever 
remain for a witness to the world that those sweet 
and large, even when dying, affections in him could 
no more be contracted with the narrowness of pain, 
grief, and sickness, than any sparkle of immortality 
can be buried in the shadow of death." 



1586] Preparing for Death. 347 



To his father-in-law, Sir Francis Walsingham, and 
his brother Robert, or either of them, he gave 
authority to sell so much of his property in the 
counties of Lincoln, Sussex, and Southampton, as 
was necessary to pay his father's debts and his own ; 
which latter were heavy in consequence of the ex- 
penses he had been put to in helping the war in the 
Netherlands. To his wife, Dame Frances Sidney, he 
bequeathed, during her lifetime, half the income 
arising from all the manors, lands, tenements, rents, 
rights, and reversions he had lately inherited from 
his father or otherwise acquired. In trust for his 
daughter Elizabeth he left £4,000 as a marriage por- 
tion, suitable provision being made for her education 
and maintenance until she was entitled to receive 
the principal. To his younger brother Thomas he 
assigned lands to the value of £100 a year, to be 
selected from any part of his estates, except Pens- 
hurst. That, with all the rest of the present income, 
save certain other small bequests, and reversion of 
the whole property, were left to the other brother, 
Robert. 

Several of the minor bequests are noteworthy. 
To his " dear sister," the Countess of Pembroke, he 
left " my best jewel, beset with diamonds." To his 
uncles, the Earls of Leicester and Warwick, and to 
his wife's parents, Sir Francis and Lady Walsing- 
ham, he left £100 apiece, " to bestow in jewels for 
my remembrance." For his aunt, the Countess of 
Sussex, another aunt's husband, the Earl of Hunt- 
ingdon, and his brother-in-law, the Earl of Pem- 
broke, he desired that three gold rings, set with 



348 Sir Philip Sidney, [1586 

large diamonds and all exactly alike, might be 
fashioned ; and to his aunt, Lady Huntingdon, and 
the wives of his uncles, the Earls of Warwick and 
Leicester, he appointed " every one of them a jewel, 
the best I have." To his " dear friends," Edward 
Dyer and Fulke Greville, he left all his books ; to 
another, Sir William Russell, his best suit of armour ; 
to Edward Wotton, his companion in Vienna in 
1574, an annual present of a buck from Penshurst. 
Every servant was remembered, from the old and 
faithful Griffin Madox, who had been his steward 
ever since their return from foreign travel, and to 
whom he assigned an annuity of £40, down to the 
humblest in his employment, who were to receive £$ 
apiece. To the surgeons and divines who were wait- 
ing upon him during this his last illness gifts of ,£30 in 
one case and of ,£20 in the others were to be made. 

On the 6th of October the Earl of Leicester 
wrote hopefully about his nephew. " He feeleth no 
grief now but his long lying, which he must suffer." 
But Sir Philip knew that he was dying. On the 8th 
he discovered, what the surgeons had not noticed 
and now denied, that mortification of his shattered 
limb had commenced. His only fear was that the 
pains he was enduring, and concealing from such un- 
observant eyes as Leicester's, might spoil the vigour 
of his mind before the body was at rest. " I do 
with trembling heart, and most humbly," he said, 
" intreat the Lord that the pangs of death may not 
be so grievous as to take away my understanding." 

On the evening of Sunday, the 16th, after he had 
been ill for four and twenty days, Sidney suddenly 



1586] Dying. 349 

raised himself in his bed, and, resting his elbow on 
the pillow, called for a piece of paper. In a fitful 
gleam of hope, perhaps, he wrote this touching little 
note to his friend John Wier, the chief physician of the 
Duke of Cleves, and the famous pupil of Cornelius 
Agrippa : " Mi Wieri, veni, veni. De vita periclitor, 
et te cupio. Nee vivus, nee mortuus, ero ingratus. 
Plura non possum, sed obnixe oro ut festines. Vale. 
Tuus Ph. Sidney." 

But death came more quickly than the physician. 
Before daybreak on Monday, the 17th, Gifford walked 
gently to the bedside and asked Sidney how he was. 
" I feel myself more weak," he replied. " I have not 
slept this night." He was troubled in his mind, 
doubting whether his prayers had been answered 
and his sins forgiven. Gifford comforted him with 
texts and pious assurances. Sidney then, lifting up 
his eyes and hands, exclaimed, " I would not change 
my joy for the empire of the world." 

He called for his will, had it read over to him, and 
dictated and signed the codicil, by which, among 
other bequests, he left his best sword to the Earl of 
Essex, and the next best to Lord Willoughby. That 
done, he asked that the poem he had written two or 
three weeks ago might be chanted to him for the last 
time. During the next three or four hours he con- 
versed at intervals on matters proper to the occasion. 
Whenever there was a long pause and his friends 
kept silence, thinking he might be asleep, he asked 
them to talk on : "I pray you speak to me still." 

About noon he became visibly weaker, and he 
took leave, one by one, of his sorrowing friends. 



35o 



Sir Philip Sidney. 



[1586 



One of the last to be addressed was his brother 
Robert, knighted ten days before for his bravery at 
Zutphen. " Love my memory," said Sir Philip ; 
" cherish my friends ; their faith to me may assure 
you they are honest. But above all, govern your 
will and affections by the will and word of your 
Creator ; in me beholding the end of the world with 
all her vanities." 

A little later, at about two o'clock in the afternoon 
of this memorable Monday, the 17th of October, 
1586, as he lay with closed eyes, Gifford said to him : 
" Sir, if you hear what I say, let us by some means 
know it ; and if you have still your inward joy and 
consolation in God, hold up your hand." Straight- 
way he raised not one hand alone but both, and set 
them together on his breast, with joined palms and 
fingers pointing upwards, in attitude of prayer. 

Thus died Sir Philip Sidney. 




SIDNEY'S TREE 







CHAPTER XIX. 



SUPPLEMENTARY. 




^S^S^^^Sf^ IR >" wrote the Earl of Leicester 
(§\nY ^^' >fu to Sir Francis Walsingham 
on the 25th of October, eight 
days after Sir Philip's death, 
" the grief I have taken for 
the loss of my dear son and 
yours would not suffer me 
to write sooner of those ill news unto you, especially 
being in so good hope, so very little time before, of 
his good recovery. But he is with the Lord, whose 
will be done. What perfection he was born unto, 
and how able he was to serve her Majesty and his 
country, all men here almost wonder. For mine own 
part I have lost, beside the comfort of my life, a 
most principal stay and help in my service here, and, 
if I may say it, I think none of all hath a greater Iojs 
than the Queen's Majesty herself. Your sorrowful 
daughter and mine is with me here at Utrecht, till 
she may recover some strength ; for she is wonder- 

351 



352 Sir Philip Sidney. 



fully overthrown through her long care since the 
beginning of her husband's hurt ; and I am the more 
careful that she should be in some strength ere she 
take her journey into England, for that she is with 
child, which I pray God send to be a son, if it be His 
will ; but, whether son or daughter, they shall be my 
children too." Neither son nor daughter, however, 
came into the world alive. Lady Sidney's wifely 
zeal had interfered with her parental responsibilities, 
and her child was still-born. " The Lord hath in- 
flicted us with sharpness," Leicester said in another 
letter. 

" I go no whither," Fulke Greville wrote to a fel- 
low-mourner soon after the news of his friend's death 
reached him. " The only question I now study is 
whether weeping sorrow or speaking sorrow may 
most honour his memory that I think death is sorry 
for. What he was to God, his friends, and country, 
fame hath told, though his expectations went beyond 
her good. Give me leave to join with you in prais- 
ing and lamenting him, the name of whose friend- 
ship carried me above my own worth, and I fear hath 
left me to play the ill poet in mine own part." * 

All England went into mourning for the dead 
Sidney. " It was accounted a sin," we are told, " for 
any gentleman of quality, for months after, to appear 
at Court or city in any light or gaudy apparel." On 
the day when the corpse was landed in England 
for burial Queen Elizabeth sent a message to Sir 
Francis Walsingham, saying she would have visited 

* Hatfield MSS.; Fulke Greville to Archibald Douglas, (October,) 
1586. 



England in Mourning. 353 

him in person that morning but for fear that their 
meeting would have redoubled both his and her grief 
at the loss of Sir Philip.* The Queen's grief seems 
to have shown itself in rough ways. Naunton, in 
his " Regalia," tells how, some time after, young 
Lord Mountjoy having stolen away from Court and 
joined Sir John Norris's company, Elizabeth had 
him brought home by special messenger, and, " when 
he came into the Queen's presence, she fell into a 
kind of reviling, demanding how he durst go over 
without leave." " Serve me so once more," quoth 
she, " and I will lay you fast enough for running. 
You will never leave it until you are knocked on the 
head as that inconsiderate fellow Sidney was." 

On Monday, the 24th of October, the hero's body, 
having been suitably embalmed, was removed from 
Arnhem to Flushing, there to remain for another 
week. On the 1st of November it was conveyed to 
the water's edge, followed by twelve hundred of the 
English soldiers, walking three abreast and trailing 
their swords and muskets in the dust, and by a vast 
concourse of Dutch burghers. As they marched 
solemn music was performed. Rounds of small shot 
were thrice fired by all the men present, and from 
the great ordnance on the walls two volleys were 
discharged as the corpse was taken from the shore. 
It was placed in The Black Pinnace, Sir Philip Sid- 
ney's own vessel, its sails, tackle, and other furniture 
being all of black stuff, and was accompanied out of 
port by several other ships, all in mourning. 

* State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth, vol. cxcv., No. i.; Davison 
to Walsingham, 5 November, 1586. 
23 



354 Si r Philip Sidney. 

The people of the Netherlands were loth to part 
with the remains of him who had died in their ser- 
vice. The States entreated that the honour of 
providing for his burial might be conferred on them ; 
if so, they would pledge themselves, they averred, 
to erect for him as fair a monument as had ever 
been set up for any king or emperor in Christen- 
dom ; " yea, though the same should cost half a ton 
of gold in the building." But England claimed her 
own. 

On Friday, the 5th of November, the mournful 
cargo was landed at Tower Hill, on the Thames, and 
thence borne to a house in the Minories, where it 
waited three months for interment. 

The reason for this unusual delay is curious. " Sir 
Philip Sidney hath left a great number of poor 
creditors," Walsingham wrote to Leicester on this 5th 
of November. " What order he hath taken by his 
will for their satisfaction I know not. It is true that, 
immediately after the death of his father, he sent me 
a letter of attorney for the sale of such portion of 
land as might content his creditors ; but there was 
nothing done before his death. I have paid and must 
pay for him about ^6,000, which I do assure your 
lordship hath brought me into a most desperate and 
hard state, which I weigh nothing in respect of the 
gentleman who was my chief worldly comfort." 
When the will in which Sidney had made arrange- 
ments for payment of his father's debts reached 
England informalities were found in it, and there 
were legal difficulties in its execution owing to the 
son's death having followed so quickly on the 



Waiting for Burial. 355 

father's. " I have caused Sir Philip Sidney's will to be 
considered by some gentlemen learned in the law," 
Walsingham wrote in another letter, " and I find the 
same imperfect touching the sale of his land for the 
satisfying of his poor creditors ; which, I assure your 
lordship, doth greatly afflict me, that a gentleman 
that hath lived so unspotted a reputation, and had 
so great cares to see all men satisfied, should be so 
exposed to the outcry of his creditors. This hard 
estate of this noble gentleman maketh me stay to 
take order of his burial until your lordship return. I 
do not see how the same can be performed, with 
that solemnity that appertaineth, without the utter 
undoing of his creditors, which is to be weighed in 
conscience." 

The Earl of Leicester would not or could not find 
means for the burial of his nephew. Therefore it 
was postponed either until the lawyers' hindrance 
had been removed, or, as is more probable, until Sir 
Francis Walsingham had saved enough money to 
defray the expenses out of his own pocket. It was 
commonly reported at the time that the thing was 
being done at his individual cost, and purely out of 
regard for his son-in-law's memory. At any rate, 
we may be sure the funeral was honestly paid for; 
and it was a more splendid funeral, perhaps, than 
had ever yet been given to any English subject. 

Thursday, the 16th of February, 1587, four months 
all but a day after Sidney's death, was appointed for 
the ceremony, and no pains were spared to make 
the pageant worthy of the hero. Upwards of seven 
hundred mourners took rank in the procession, which 



356 Sir Philip Sidney. 

contained representatives of every class of English 
society, duly betokening the grief felt by all England. 

Two and thirty poor men, one for each year of 
Sidney's life led the way, in long mourning gowns, 
with their short hats pressed tightly over their heads, 
and long- staves in their hands. Next followed offi- 
cers, fifers, and drummers of foot, and captains, cor- 
porals, and trumpeters of Sidney's regiment of horse, 
all with their truncheons reversed, and with ensigns, 
bearing the mottoes Semper eadem and Pulchrum 
propter se, trailing in the dust. 

After these came an uplifted standard, Sidney's 
own, showing the cross of St. George, the Sidney 
crest — a porcupine, collared and chained, between 
three crowned lions' heads — and the device Vix ea 
nostra voco. It was borne by Mr. Richard Gwyn, who 
was followed by sixty of Sidney's gentlemen and yeo- 
men, of all ages and sizes, but clothed alike in sombre 
garb and walking in pairs. By themselves were the 
dead man's chief physician and surgeon, Dr. James 
and Mr. Kell ; and a few paces behind was Griffin 
Madox, his loving steward. Next walked, in pairs, 
sixty of his kindred and friends, among them being 
Sir Francis Drake and Sir William Herbert, Edward 
Waterhouse and Thomas Perrott. The preacher 
chosen for the day, attended by two chaplains, part- 
ed these latter from the bearer of a pennant on which 
were embroidered Sidney's arms, and which intro- 
duced a separate portion of the procession. 

The hero's war horse, richly furnished, was led by 
a footman and ridden by a little page in whose hand 
was one half of a broken lance, the other half being 



Going to Burial. 357 

trailed on the ground ; and following it was a barbed 
horse, caparisoned with cloth of gold, ridden by 
another little page who supported a reversed battle- 
axe on the saddle. Next appeared a great banner, 
carried by Henry White and attended by five 
heralds, in whose hands were badges of Sidney's 
knighthood. Portcullis held his spurs and his gloves, 
Blue-Mantle his gauntlets, Rouge-Dragon his hel- 
met, Richmond his shield, and Somerset his tabard, 
while Clarence King-at-arms walked sedately in the 
rear. 

All these served as ushers of the coffin, which at 
length approached. Shrouded in rich black velvet, 
and adorned with the Sidney arms, it was lodged on 
two long poles, each resting on the shoulders of 
seven yeomen. Four youths of the family held up 
the family banners, and the pall-bearers were Sir 
Philip's four especial friends, Fulke Greville, Edward 
Dyer, Edward Wotton, and Thomas Dudley ; one 
being at each corner, and all clad in long gowns and 
close-fitting hoods. 

Sir Robert Sidney, dressed in the same garb, 
walked as chief mourner, and at a little distance 
were four knights and two gentlemen of the Sidney 
and Walsingham households, Thomas Sidney being 
foremost. After them rode in pairs the Earls of 
Leicester and Huntingdon, the Earls of Pembroke 
and Essex, the Lords Willoughby and North ; and 
there were seven gentlemen from the Low Coun- 
tries, one representing each of the United Provinces. 

Finally, a long cavalcade was headed by the Lord 
Mayor of London, in his purple robes, and by his 



358 Sir Philip Sidney. 

aldermen, sheriffs, and recorder, twenty in all. A 
hundred and twenty unarmed citizens were in at- 
tendance, and about three hundred citizens trained 
for war, all holding their weapons reversed. 

The company, thus ordered, started from the 
Minories and proceeded slowly to St. Paul's Cathe- 
dral, through streets so crowded that it was difficult 
to pass at all. The inside of the church was draped 
with black. When the coffin was placed upon a 
pile, the words inscribed upon it, and made the 
preacher's text, " Blessed are the dead who die in 
the Lord," found an echo in the hearts of all the 
thousands present. The sermon being over and the 
service read, the body was interred under the Lady 
Chapel, at the back of the high altar — all which, of 
course, was destroyed by the great fire of 1666; 
and a double volley of shot from the churchyard 
informed the world outside that Sir Philip Sidney 
had been buried. 

Death was busy with Sidney's kindred after as 
well as before the year in which his own life was 
prematurely ended. Both his father and his mother 
had passed away in the summer of 1586, the bril- 
liant career of his most famous uncle, the Earl of 
Leicester, a bad man in many ways, but not without 
some redeeming qualities, was closed in 1588, and in 
1590 his other uncle, the Earl of Warwick, passed 
from a wond in which he had dwelt much less 
pompously, but much more worthily. In 1590, too, 
England lost one of its ablest and most honest 
statesmen, and the Sidney family its best friend, in 



His Survivors. 359 



Sir Francis Walsingham, who died in his fifty-fourth 
year, so poor that it was needful to bury him at 
night time in St. Paul's Cathedral, where he lay in 
the same tomb as his honoured son-in-law.* The 
amiable and talented Countess of Pembroke lived 
on in widowhood till 1621, and was the patron of 
Shakespeare and many other famous men of letters 
unknown to fame in her brother Philip's day. Of 
her youngest brother Thomas we lose trace. The 
other brother, Robert, inheriting both the Sidney 
property and the wealth left by his uncle the Earl of 
Leicester, was created Baron Sidney of Penshurst in 
1603, Viscount de LTsle in 1604, and Earl of Leices- 
ter in 1618, and lived until 1626. To him in 161 5 
reverted the property of his niece Elizabeth, Sir 
Philip's only child, who at the age of fifteen was 
married to Roger Manners, fifth Earl of Rutland, 
and who died without issue when she was thirty. 
Her mother survived her. In 1590 Sir Philip's 
widow became the wife of the young Earl of Essex, 
and, after his execution, accepted as a third husband 
Richard de Burgh, Earl of Clanricarde. 

Spenser and the other poets, following Sidney's 
lead, and speaking in fictitious terms of Lady Rich 
as Stella, sometimes applied the title to Dame Fran- 
ces Sidney also. It is worthy of note that the true 

* This was hidden from view in 1591, when, as Stow tells us in hip 
" Survey of London," the body of Sir Christopher Hatton was buried 
close by, "under a sumptuous monument where a merry poet wrote 

thus : 

" ' Philip and Francis have no tomb, 

For great Christopher takes all the room.' " 



360 Sir Philip Sidney. 

Stella, the object of Sidney's homage in verse, was 
the daughter of Walter Devereux, the first Earl of 
Essex, and that her brother, Robert Devereux, the 
second Earl of Essex, had Sidney's widow, the 
other Stella, for his wife. Thus the two Stellas were 
closely linked, in different relationships, to the three 
men who stand out most prominently as types of 
English chivalry in the Elizabethan age. 

The earliest of the three, the first Earl of Essex, 
unfortunate in nearly all the events of his life, died 
before he was thirty-five, and after Queen Elizabeth 
had been eighteen years on the throne. 

The latest of the three, the second Earl of Essex, 
was Queen Elizabeth's prime favourite, and the most 
conspicuous exemplar of chivalrous life, such as it 
was and could be then, during thirteen years before 
she caused him to be beheaded, when his age was 
not yet thirty-four. 

Between these two, and greater and worthier than 
either, in some ways the pupil of the one, in some 
ways the tutor of the other, was Sir Philip Sidney, 
whose short term of brilliant eminence was in the 
middle period of Queen Elizabeth's reign, and was 
closed by death when he lacked six weeks of being 
thirty-two years old. 

It is not necessary here to catalogue or largely 
quote from the praises and lamentations uttered in 
prose and verse by hundreds of Sir Philip Sidney's 
contemporaries, and the tributes to his worth of- 
fered by other hundreds living after him. Unlike as 
Hamlet is to Sidney, with some remarkable resem- 



Pra ised of all. 361 



blances in particulars, it is not mere guessing to as- 
sume that Shakespeare, who settled in London and 
joined the Earl of Leicester's company of players 
while all the world was talking of Sidney's life and 
its heroic ending, had him in his thoughts when he 
made Ophelia speak of Hamlet as 

The courtier's, scholar's, soldier's eye, tongue, sword, 
The expectancy and rose of the fair State, 
The glass of fashion and the mould of form, 
The observed of all observers. 

How Sidney was regarded by men who could not 
have been blamed had they shut their eyes to his 
merits may be learned from one of the " Four 
Sonnets to Sir Philip Sidney's Soul," written by 
Thomas Constable, the Papist who had to divide 
much of his life between exile and imprisonment 
on account of his religion, yet had nothing but ten- 
derness and reverence for one who was a foremost 
champion of Protestant supremacy. 

Give pardon, blessed soul, to my bold cries, 

If they, importunate, interrupt the song 

Which now, with joyful notes, thou sing'st among 
The angel-choristers of heavenly skies ! 
Give pardon, eke, sweet soul, to my slow cries, 

That since I saw thee now it is so long, 

And yet the tears that unto thee belong 
To thee as yet they did not sacrifice ! 
I did not know that thou wert dead before : 

I did not feel the grief I did sustain. 
The greater stroke astonisheth the more : 

Astonishment takes from us sense of pain : 
I stood amazed when others' tears begun, 
And now begin to weep when they have done. 



362 Sir Philip Sidney. 

" This is that Sidney," wrote William Camden of 
the friend he had lost, " who, as Providence seems 
to have sent him into the world to give the present 
a specimen of the ancients, so it did on a sudden 
recall him and snatch him from us as more worthy 
of Heaven than of earth." But the true-hearted 
student of men's thoughts and actions was too wise 
to grieve or repine. " Rest, then, in peace, O 
Sidney," he added. " We will not celebrate your 
memory with tears, but admiration. Whatever we 
loved in you, whatever we admired in you, still con- 
tinues and will continue in the memories of men, 
the revolutions of ages, and the annals of time. 
Many, as inglorious and ignoble, are buried in 
oblivion : but Sidney shall live to all posterity. For 
as the Grecian poet has it, ' Virtue 's beyond the 
reach of fate.' " 

But our record of Sir Philip Sidney's life, his 
chivalrous aims and chivalrous achievements, must 
be closed with w r ords written by his comrade and 
kinsman, Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke, 
the man who knew him intimately from childhood, 
and who, outliving him by two and forty years, 
caused the title, " Friend to Sir Philip Sidney," to 
be inscribed upon his tomb. 

" Indeed," Fulke Greville wrote, " he was a true 
model of worth ; a man fit for conquest, plantation, 
reformation, or what action so ever is the greatest 
and hardest among men ; withal, such a lover of 
mankind and goodness that whosoever had any real 
parts in him found comfort, participation, and pro- 
tection to the uttermost of his power ; like Zephy- 



" A True Model of Worthy 363 

rus, he giving life where he blew. The universities 
abroad and at home accounted him a very Maecenas 
of learning, dedicated their books to him, and com- 
municated every invention or improvement of 
knowledge with him. Soldiers honoured him, and 
were so honoured by him, as no man thought he 
marched under the true banner of Mars that had 
not obtained Sir Philip Sidney's approbation. Men 
of affairs in most parts of Christendom entertained 
correspondence with him. But what speak I of 
these, with whom his own ways and ends did 
concur? since, to descend, his heart and capacity 
were so large that there was not a cunning painter, 
a skilful engineer, an excellent musician, or any 
other artificer of extraordinary fame, that made not 
himself known to this famous spirit, and found him 
his true friend without hire, and the common ren- 
dezvous of worth in his time. Besides, the ingenuity 
of his nature did spread itself so freely abroad as 
who lives that can say he ever did him harm? 
whereas there be many living that may thankfully 
acknowledge he did them good. Neither was this 
in him a private but a public affection ; his chief 
ends being not friends, wife, children and himself, 
but above all things the honour of his Maker, and 
the service of his prince and country." 




INDEX. 



Aid, the, Queen Elizabeth's 
ship, employed in Frobisher's 
expedition, 156, 157 

Alencon, Francis, Duke of. See 
Anjou, Francis, Duke of 

Alexander, Sir William, editor of 
" The Arcadia," 264 

Alva, Duke of, his persecution 
of the Netherlanders, 78 

Amadas, Captain, his voyage to 
Virginia, 298 

American colonisation, attempted 
by Frobisher, 156, 157, 161 ; 
Sidney's plans for, 296, 297 ; 
Raleigh's expeditions, 298, 299 

Anjou, Francis, Duke of, the 
project of his marriage with 
Queen Elizabeth in 1572, when 
he was Duke of Alencon, 57, 
59, 64 ; revival of the project 
in 1579, 177 ; Sidney's opposi- 
tion to it, 178, 223 ; Sidney's 
letter to the Queen about it, 
182-185 ; the French embas- 
sage to Queen Elizabeth in 
furtherance of the project in 
1581, 231 ; further marriage 
negotiations, 250, 251 ; his 
visit to England, 251 ; at Ant- 



werp in 1582, 251-253 
death, 300, 301 
Anjou, Henry, Duke of. 
Henry III. of France 



his 



See 



Anne, daughter of Philip II. and 
widow of Maximilian II., 
Sidney's visit to, at Prague, 

121, 122 

Antonio, Don, claimant of the 
crown of Portugal, Sidney's 
friendship with, 317 

Antwerp, Sidney at, 86, 115, 127, 
251-253; Languet at, 222, 
253 ; the siege of, 312, 325 

" Apology for Poetry," Sidney's. 
See " Defence of Poesy" 

" Arcadia," Sanazarro's, 260 

" Arcadia," Sidney's, 67, 68, 
203, 206, 207, 213-218, 225, 
247. 255-257, 259-271, 274, 
346 

Areopagus, Sidney's and Spen- 
ser's 199-203, 206, 254, 256, 
257, 269, 292 

Arnhem, 336, 339 ; Sidney's ill- 
ness and death at, 344—350, 

353 

Arran, Earl of, 307, 308 

Arundel, Earl of. See Howard, 
Philip 

Ascham, Roger, 40 ; on Venice, 
72 ; Sidney's debt to, 189, ign 

Ashton, Thomas, founder of 
Shrewsbury School, 26, 31, 37 

" Astrophel and Stella," Sid- 
ney's, 206, 224, 225, 236, 237, 
240, 241, 243-245, 247, 255, 
256, 269, 272-274 

Athlone, Sidney at, 106 



365 



3 66 



INDEX. 



Aubrey, John, his account of 

Sidney, 215, 247, 277 
Audley End, Sidney at, 145, 187, 

195 
Axel, Sidney's capture of, from 
the Spaniards, 332-334, 33° 



B 



Banosius, Sidney's friendship 
with, 190 

Barlow, Captain, his voyage to 
Virginia, 298 

Barn Elms, Sir Francis Walsing- 
ham's house at Putney, 194, 
288, 289 

Basset, Mr., 114 

Baynard's Castle, London, 130 ; 
Sidney at, 131, 137, 228, 231 

Bedford, Earl of. See Russell, 
John 

Belarius, Sidney's letter to, from 
his death-bed, 346 

Bergen-op-Zoom, Sidney's house 
at, 332 n. 

Berkeley, Henry, Lord, urged to 
marry his daughter to Philip 
Sidney, 55, 56 

Berkeley, Richard, 55 

Berkeley Castle, Queen Elizabeth 
at, 56 

Black Pinnace, the, Sidney's 
vessel, 353 

Blackfriars Theatre, the, 193 

Blois, the treaty of, 59, 60 

Blount, Charles, Earl of Devon- 
shire, his account of the rela- 
tions between Lord and Lady 
Rich, 239, 241, 242 ; his own 
relations with Lady Rich, 239, 
242 

Bohemian Diet of 1575, Sidney 
at the, 84 

Bowes, Sir Jerome, 114 

Breda, Sidney at, 127 

Brielle, one of the "caution- 
towns " in the Netherlands, 
313, 328, 337 ; Sir Thomas 
Cecil, Governor of, 320 



Broadgates — afterwards Pem- 
broke — College, Oxford, 39 

Brooke, Lord. See Greville, 
Fulke 

Brouker, Mr., 114 

Bruno, Giordano, 190 ; his 
friendship with Sidney, 291- 

293 

Brussels, Sidney at, 115 

Bryskett, Lewis, Sidney's com- 
panion in Germany and Italy, 
70, 71 

Buckhurst, Lord. See Sackville, 
Thomas 

Burbage, James, the actor, 1 93 

Burghley, Lord. See Cecil, Sir 
William 

Butler, Thomas, tenth Earl of 
Ormond, Sir Henry Sidney's 
troubles with, 32-34, 36, 132 ; 
Philip Sidney's quarrel with, 
133 ; his New-Year present to 
Queen Elizabeth in 1578, 139, 
141 



Cambridge University, Fulke 
Greville at, 39 ; Sidney alleged 
to have been at, 53 ; Sir 
Francis Walsingham at, 60 ; 
deputation from, to Queen 
Elizabeth at Audley End, 145 ; 
Gabriel Harvey and Edmund 
Spenser at, 196 

Camden, William, his account 
of Shrewsbury, 26 ; at Oxford 
with Sidney, 39 ; his praise of 
Sidney, 362 

Canterbury, Sir Henry Sidney at, 
172, 175 ; Philip Sidney at, 

251 
Carew, Richard, of Antony, 38 
Carey, Sir George, Governor of 

the Isle of Wight, 284 
Carleill, Christopher, Sir Francis 
Walsingham's son-in-law, 295 ; 
his share in American explora- 
tion, 295 ; and in Sidney's 
West Indian project, 318 



INDEX. 



367 



Casimir, Prince John, 113, 116 ; 
Sidney's visits to, in Germany, 
116-118,124; his employment 
in the Netherlands, 163, 164, 
172 ; his visit to England in 
1579, 172-174, 281 ; Sidney's 
proxy as a K. G. in 1583, 281 ; 

Cathay, projects for reaching, 
and Sidney's share in them, 
151-161 

Cathay Company, the, 153, 156, 
158, 161 

Catherine de' Medici, Sir Henry 
Sidney's mission to, 22 ; at the 
time of the St. Bartholomew 
Massacre, 59, 61 ; Philip Sid- 
ney's opinion of, 182 ; his pro- 
posed mission to, 301 

Cecil, Anne, afterwards Countess 
of Oxford, 42 ; the project for 
marrying her to Philip Sidney, 
43-48 ; her other suitors, 49 ; 
her unfortunate marriage, 52 ; 

Cecil, Lady Mildred, her friend- 
ship with the Sidneys, 40-42, 

Cecil, Sir Thomas, Governor of 
Brielle, 320 

Cecil, Sir William, afterwards 
Lord Burghley, 10; Chancel- 
lor of Cambridge University, 
39 ; his early patronage of 
Sidney, 39-43, 50 ; the project 
for marrying his daughter to 
Sidney, 43-47 ; his place as a 
courtier, 91, 93 ; guardian of 
Robert, Earl of Essex, 109 ; 
Sidney's letter to him from 
Heidelberg, 116 ; entertains 
Queen Elizabeth at Theobalds, 
142 ; his share in Frobisher's 
expeditions, 153, 158 ; his be- 
friending of Sidney, 282, 284, 
288 ; his scolding of Sidney, 
310, 311 ; Sidney's letters to, 
from the Netherlands, 327 

Chancellor, Richard, 152 

Charles IX. of France, 22 ; the 
Earl of Lincoln's mission to, 
57—59 ; his patronage of Sid- 



ney, 60, 122 ; his share in the 

St. Bartholomew Massacre, 61- 

63 ; his death, 122 
Charlotte of Bourbon, wife of 

William of Orange, Sidney's 

visit to, 127 
Chartley Castle, the Sidneys at, 

96, 103 ; the Earl of Essex at, 

105 
Chaucer, Geoffrey, Sidney's 

praise of, 256 
Chester, Sir Henry Sidney at, 

146, 147 
Chiswick, Lady Sidney at, 91, 

146, 149 
Chivalry in the Middle Ages, 2 ; 

under the Tudors, 2, 4 ; Sir 

Philip Sidney as a type of, 1, 

5, 360 
Christ Church College. See Ox- 
ford 
" Christian Religion, The True- 

ness of the," Sidney's and 

Golding's translation from 

Philip du Plessis-Mornay, 138, 

275, 293 
Churchyard, Thomas, the poet, 

52, 146 
Clanricarde, the Earls and the 

Countess of. See De Burgh 
Clinton, Edward, ninth Earl of 

Lincoln, his mission to Paris, 

57-59 
Coligni, Gaspard de, Admiral of 

France, 61, 62 ; killed in the 

Massacre of St. Bartholomew, 

63 
Cologne, Sidney at, 125, 126 
Coningsby, Thomas, Sidney's 

friendship with, 70 
Constable, Sir Robert, 284 
Constable, Thomas, his " Sonnet 

to Sir Philip Sidney's Soul." 

361 
Cooke, Mildred. See Cecil, 

Lady 
"Countess of Pembroke's Arca- 
dia, The." See "Arcadia," 

Sidney's 
Cressy, Mr., 114 



3 68 



INDEX. 



" Cuisse Rompue, La," a poem 
written by Sidney on his death- 
bed, 346, 349 



D 



" David, The Psalms of," trans- 
lated by Sidney and the 
Countess of Pembroke, 218 

D'Avila, the Spanish Viceroy in 
the Netherlands, 79 

Davison, William, English Am- 
bassador in the Netherlands, 
310 

De Burgh, Frances, Countess of 
Clanricarde, 359. See Sidney, 
Lady Frances 

De Burgh, Richard, second Earl 
of Clanricarde, Sir Henry Sid- 
ney's relations with, 106, 147 

De Burgh, Ulick, third Earl of 
Clanricarde, married to Sir 
Philip Sidney's widow, 359 

" Defence of Poesy," Sidney's, 
83, 205, 206, 256-260, 267 

" Defence of the Earl of Leices- 
ter," Sidney's, 274 

De Horsey, Sir Edward, Captain 
of the Isle of Wight, 284 

Dekker, Thomas, on arcadian- 
ism, 267 

De LTsle, Barons. See Dudley, 
Ambrose and John 

De LTsle, Robert, 6 

Delft, William of Orange at 175 ; 
Sidney at, 324 

Dendermonde, the Spanish occu- 
pation of, 303 

Desmond, Earl of, Sir Henry 
Sidney's troubles with, 33, 34 

Deventer, 340 

De Vere, Anne, Countess of Ox- 
ford. See Cecil, Anne 

De Vere, Edward, Earl of Ox- 
ford, his marriage with Anne 
Cecil, 49, 50 ; his scandalous 
behaviour, 52, 93 ; his success 
at Court, 90 ; his quarrel with 
Sidney, 179-182, 186, 199, 
201 ; his literary circle, 201, 



273 ; Gabriel Harvey's mock- 
ery of, 202 ; in the Nether- 
lands, 323 

Devereux, Lady Dorothy, 238 

Devereux, Frances, Countess of 
Essex, 359. See Sidney, Lady 
Frances 

Devereux, Lettice, Countess of 
Essex, 96, 101, 105, 109, 140; 
her marriage to the Earl of 
Leicester, 146, 170, 178, 237 ; 
Sidney's bequest to, 347 

Devereux, Lady Penelope. See 
Rich, Lady 

Devereux, Robert, second Earl 
of Essex, 109, 239 ; his ser- 
vices in the Netherlands, 323, 
340 ; at Zutphen, 341, 342 ; 
Sidney's bequest to, 349 ; at 
Sidney's burial, 357 ; his later 
career, 359, 360 

Devereux, Walter, first Earl of 
Essex, 96, 101, 360 ; Philip 
Sidney's friendship with, 101- 
108 ; his work in Ireland, 102, 
103 ; Queen Elizabeth's treat- 
ment of, 102-104 ; his return 
to Ireland, 106 ; his death 
there, 107-109 

Devonshire, Earl of. See Blount, 
Charles 

" Diana," Montemayor's, 260 

Doesburg, the capture of, 340 

Dordrecht, or Dort, Sidney at, 
127, 324 

Dormer, Lady, Sidney's aunt, 9 

Dormer, Sir William, 9 

Dorset, .Robert, Sidney's tutor at 
Oxford, 38 

Dover, Sir Henry Sidney at, 22 

Drake, Sir Francis, 162 ; his ex- 
pedition in the Golden Hind 
162, 163, 316 ; in Parlia- 
ment, 298 ; his West Indian 
project and Sidney's share in 
it, 316-319, 321 ; at Sidney's 
burial, 356 

Dresden, Sidney at, 85 

Dublin, Sir Henry Sidney in, 31, 
106 ; Philip Sidney in, 106, 108 



INDEX. 



369 



Dudley, Ambrose, Baron de L'Isle 
and Earl of Warwick, Sidney's 
uncle, his birth, 8 ; under 
Queen Mary, 14; his advance- 
ment by Queen Elizabeth, ig, 
20 ; Master of the Ordnance, 
20, 22, 2S2-284, 310 ; his en- 
couragement of maritime enter- 
prise, 152 ; his share in Martin 
Frobisher's expeditions, 152, 
153 ; godfather to William 
Herbert, 210 ; Spenser's praise 
of, 282 ; Sidney's bequest to, 
347 ; at Sidney's burial, 357 ; 
his death, 358 

Dudley, Lady Catherine, Sid- 
ney's aunt. See De Hastings, 
Catherine 

Dudley, Edmund, Henry VII's 
agent, 6, 7 

Dudley, Lord Guildford, Sidney's 
uncle, 8, 12, 14 

Dudley, Lord Henry, Sidney's 
uncle, 8, 19 

Dudley, Jane, Duchess of North- 
umberland, 15 

Dudley, John, Earl of Warwick 
and Duke of Northumberland, 
Sidney's grandfather, 6, 7, n, 
12, 13, 14, 130 

Dudley, John, Earl of Warwick, 
son of the above, 8, 14, 20, 
146 

Dudley, Lettice, Countess of 
Leicester. See Devereux, Let- 
tice 

Dudley, Lady Mary. See Sid- 
ney, Lady Mary 

Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leices- 
ter, Philip Sidney's uncle, his 
birth, 8 ; under Queen Mary, 
14, 15 ; his advancement by 
Queen Elizabeth, 19, 20, 21 
n.j Chancellor of Oxford Uni- 
versity, 39 ; his early patronage 
of Philip, 39, 57 ; his share in 
the project for marrying Philip 
to Anne Cecil, 45, 46 ; his po- 
sition as chief courtier 90, 91 ; 
his help to Philip, 92, 93 ; his 



entertainment of the Queen at 
Kenilworth, 95 ; and at Wood- 
stock, 96 ; his relations with 
the Earl and Countess of Essex, 
96, 105, 108, 109 ; his letter to 
John Casimir, 116 ; his share 
in the marriage of Mary Sidney 
to the Earl of Pembroke, 130, 
131 ; entertains the Queen at 
Wanstead, 142-144, his mar- 
riage there with the Countess 
of Essex, 146, T78 ; his share 
in Martin Frobisher's expedi- 
tions, 152, 153 ; in disgrace, 
178 ; his "players," 191, 193, 
324 n.j godfather to Wiliiam 
Herbert, 210 ; restored to fa- 
vour with Queen Elizabeth, 
211, 223 ; his share in the ne- 
gotiations for the Queen's mar- 
riage with the Duke of Anjou, 
223, 231 ; his help to Philip, 
228, 249 ; Philip's "defence" 
of, 274 ; appointed Lieutenant- 
General in the Netherlands, 
313 ; his proceedings there, 
323-325, 327, 33L 332, 334, 
336, 333-340, 344 ; at Zut- 
phen, 340, 341, 343 ; by Sid- 
ney's death-bed, 344, 345 ; 
Sidney's bequest to, 347 ; on 
Sidney's death, 351, 352 ; at 
Sidney's burial, 357 ; his death, 
358 

Dudley, Thomas, at Sidney's 
burial, 357 

Dudley Castle, Queen Elizabeth 
at, 97, 103 

Du Ferrier, Arnaud, Sidney's 
friendship with, 72 

Duns Scotus, 190 

Du Plessis-Mornay, Philip, 67, 
138 ; Sidney's friendship with, 
138, 190 ; his " De Veritate 
Christiana," 138, 275, 293 

Durham House, London, 101 ; 
Sidney at, 104, 105 

Du Simier, the French Ambassa- 
dor in London, 178, 179 

Dyer, Sir Edward, his rise at 



37o 



INDEX. 



Court, gi ; his friendship with 
the Sidneys, gi, g2, 101 ; his 
New- Year present to Queen 
Elizabeth in 1578, 140, 141 ; 
his share in Frobisher's expedi- 
tions, 154 ; Languet's opinion 
of, 175 ; his poems, ig7~2oo, 
204, 273; Sidney's poem about, 
220 ; his visit to the Nether- 
lands, 251 ; a letter concerning 
Sidney, 284 ; Sidney's bequest 
to, 348 ; at Sidney's burial, 
357 



Edinburgh, Sir Henry Sidney in, 
22 

Edward VL, S ; his friendship 
with Sir Henry Sidney, g-13 

Egerton, Philip, 283 

Elizabeth, Queen, her early 
friendship with the Dudleys 
and Sidneys, g, ig, 40 ; her 
accession, ig ; her favours to 
the Earls of Leicester and 
"Warwick, 20 ; her quarrels with 
Sir Henry Sidney about Irish 
affairs, 32-35 ; her " progress " 
in 1571, 41, 42 ; her project of 
marriage with the Duke of 
Alencon, afterwards Duke of 
Anjou, 57, 5g, 64 ; Philip Sid- 
ney's entrance to her Court, 
86, 87 ; her adoption of Mary 
Sidney, 8g ; her treatment of 
Walter, Earl of Essex, 102-104; 
her further ill-treatment of Sir 
Henry Sidney, 132-137 ; New- 
Year presents to her in 1578, 
I3g, 140 ; her visit to Wan- 
stead, 142-144 ; her visit to 
Audley End, 145 ; her share in 
Frobisher's expeditions, 153, 
156, 157 ; her New-Year pres- 
ents in i57g, 171 ; her relations 
with John Casimir, 163, 172- 
175, 281 ; the renewal of her 
marriage project with the Duke 
of Anjou, 177 ; her reproof of 



Sidney for his quarrel with the 
Earl of Oxford, 180 ; Sidney's 
letter to her on the marriage 
project, 1S2-185 ; godmother 
to William Herbert, 210 ; her 
fresh unkindness to Sir Henry 
Sidney, 210, 211 ; Philip Sid- 
ney's New-Year presents to, in 
15S1, 22g ; further marriage 
negotiations, 231, 250, 251 ; 
the tournament before her in 
15S1, 232-235 ; her gift of a 
lock of her hair to Sidney, 
248 ; other favours to him, 
24g, 2S1-285 ; her opposition 
to his marriage, 288 ; god- 
mother to his daughter, 28g ; 
her proposal to send him on a 
mission to Henry III. of 
France, 301, 302 ; her promise 
to protect the Netherlands, 
312, 313 ; her prohibition of 
Sidney's West Indian project, 
317, 31S, 320 ; her wrath at 
Leicester's governor-general- 
ship in the Netherlands, 324, 
325, 327, 331 ; her letter to 
Sidney on his death-bed, 345 ; 
on Sidney's death, 352, 353 

Elizabeth, widow of Charles IX. 
of France, Sidney's visit to at 
Prague, 122 

Essex, the Earls and the Countess 
of. See Devereux 

Essex House, formerly Leicester 
House, London, g7 

Etienne, Henri, 188 

Etienne, Robert, 148 

" Euphues," John Lyly's, 260; 
266, 267 

Exeter House, afterwards Leices- 
ter House, London, g7 



" Fairy Queen," Spenser's, 207, 

208, 214 
Farnese, Alexander. See Parma, 

Duke of 
" Ferrex and Porrex," iSg 



INDEX. 



371 



Fitzwalter, Baron. See RatclifTe, 

Thomas 
Fitzwilliam, Lady Anne, Sid- 
ney's auut, 9 
Fitzwilliam, Philippa, Sidney's 

cousin, 70 
Fitzwilliam, Sir William, 9 
Flanders. See Netherlands 
Flushing, Sidney at, in 1582, 251; 
Sidney appointed Governor of, 
in 1585, 313, 320; his occupa- 
tions there, 322, 323, 325, 326, 
33°, 33 2 , 336-338 ; funeral 
honours to him at, 353 
Frankfort, Sidney at, 65-68, 85 
Frederick III., Elector Palatine, 

79, 112, 113 
Frobisher, Martin, his employ- 
ments under Sir Henry Sidney, 
152 ; his expeditions in search 
of a North-west Passage to 
India, 153-161, 295 



G 



Gabriel, the, Frobisher's barque, 

154, 156 
Galway, Sidney at, 106, 109 
Gamage, Barbara, her marriage 

to Robert Sidney, 291 
" Gammer Gurton's Needle," 197 
Gascoigne, George, the poet, 96, 

191, 256 
Geertruidenberg, Sidney at, 127, 

339 

Genoa, Sidney at, 76 

Ghent, "the pacification of," 
113, 116 ; the Spanish occupa- 
tion of, 303 

Gifford, George, the minister in 
attendance at Sidney's death- 
bed, 345, 346, 349, 350 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, his em- 
ployments under Sir Henry 
Sidney, 152, 295 ; his expedi- 
tion to Newfoundland, 295 

Gilbert Hill, near Zutphen, 340 

Golden Hind, the, Drake's voyage 
round the world in, 126, 163, 
316 



Golding, Arthur, his share in 
translating ' ' De Veritate Chris- 
tiana," 275 
" Gorboduc," 189 
Gosson, Stephen, Sidney's patron- 
age of, 204, 205 ; his, "School 
of Abuse," 204, 205, 257 
Gowrie, Earl of, 307, 308 
Grave, the Spanish siege of, 330 
Gravesend, Sidney at, 321 
Gray, Patrick, sixth Lord Gray, 
" the Master of Gray," his 
plots and treacheries, 308 ; 
Sidney's friendship with, 308, 
309 
Greene, Robert, 266 
Greenwich, Sidney at, 109, 128, 

132, 145, 250 

Grenville, Sir Richard, 295, 298 

Gresham, Sir Thomas, his share 

in Frobisher's expeditions, 153 ; 

his entertainment of Prince 

John Casimir, 172 

Greville, Fulke, Lord Brooke, 

26 ; at school with Sidney, 25, 

27 ; at Oxford with Sidney, 39 ; 
at Cambridge, 39 ; his later 
friendship with Sidney, 101 ; 
his visit to Germany with Sid- 
ney, 114, 128 ; his New-Year 
present to Queen Elizabeth in 
1578, 140, 141 ; his visit to 
the Netherlands, 175 ; his 
poetical exercises, 200, 273 ; 
Sidney's poems about, 220 ; 
his office in Wales, 231 ; his 
share in the tournament of 
1581, 232-235 ; his second visit 
to the Netherlands, 251 ; his 
relations with Giordano Bruno, 
292 : his work in Parliament, 
305 ; his proposed expedition 
to the W T est Indies, 316 ; Sid- 
ney's bequest to, 348 ; on Sid- 
ney's death, 352 ; at Sidney's 
burial 357 ; his " Life of Sir 
Philip Sidney," quoted, 23, 26, 
61, 112, 115 120, 175, 259, 
304, 306, 315 315, 317, 319, 
338, 345, 346, 362 



372 



INDEX. 



Grey, Lady Jane, 12-14, 40 

Grey of Wilton, Lord, 41 ; Lord 
Deputy of Ireland, 70, 219, 
279, 280 ; Spenser's employ- 
ment under, 219, 295 

Guise, Henry of Lorraine, Duke 
of, his share in the massacre of 
St. Bartholomew, 62, 63 

Gwyn, Richard, at Sidney's 
burial, 356 

H 

Hague, The, the Earl of Leicester 
at, 324, 325, 327 ; Sidney at, 
327 

Hakluyt, Richard, at Oxford with 
Sidney, 38, 152 ; Sidney's 
friendship with, 277, 295 

Hall, Arthur, the Puritan M. P. 
for Grantham, 230 

Hall, Captain C. F., his discov- 
ery of Frobisher's relics in 
Labrador, 161 

Hampton Court, Lady Sidney at, 
17, 20, 150; Sir Henry Sidney 
at, 34, 150 ; Philip Sidney at, 
146 ; Prince John Casimir at, 

173 
Hanau, Count Philip Lewis of. 

See Philip Lewis 
Harrington, Lady, Sidney's aunt, 

9 
Harrington, Sir James, 9 
Harvey, Gabriel, 145, 187; his 

poem in praise of Sidney, 187 ; 

his friendship with Sidney and 

Spenser, 195-205, 254 
Hastings, Catherine, Countess of 

Pluntingdon, Sidney's aunt, 8, 

11 ; Sidney's bequest to, 348 
Hastings, Henry, third Earl of 

Huntingdon, 11, 237, 238 ; 

Sidney's bequest to, 347 ; at 

Sidney's burial, 357 
Hatfield, Queen Elizabeth at, 21 
Hatton, Sir Christopher, his rise 

at Court, 90, 91 ; his New- Year 

present to Queen Elizabeth in 

1578, 139, 141 ; his relations 

with Sidney, 181, 249, 288 



Heidelberg, Sidney at, 65, 85, 
113, 116-118. 

Heliodorus's " Ethiopic His- 
tory," 260 

Henry VIII. of England, his 
patronage of Sir William and 
Henry Sidney, 8, 9 

Henry III. of France, 177, 182, 
231 ; Sidney's proposed mission 
to, 301, 302 ; the Netherland- 
er' appeal to, 312 

Henry of Navarre, afterwards 
Henry IV. of France, 22 ; his 
friendship -with Sidney, 61 ; 
his marriage with Margaret of 
Anjou, 61, 62 

Henry of Lichtenstein, Prince 
Sidney's friendship with, 139 

Herbert, George, the poet, 249 

Herbert, Henry, second Earl of 
Pembroke, 130 ; his marriage 
with Mary Sidney, 130, 131 ; 
Sidney's bequest to, 347 ; at 
Sidney's burial, 357 

Herbert, Mary, Countess of Pem- 
broke, Sidney's sister, her birth, 
17 ; adopted by Queen Eliza- 
beth, 89 ; her marriage to the 
second Earl of Pembroke, 130, 
131 ; Sidney's first visit to her 
at Wilton, 131, 132 ; her New- 
Year present to Queen Eliza- 
beth in 1578, 140 ; her share in 
Frobisher's expeditions, 154, 
158 ; Spenser's praise of, 209, 
210 ; her children, 210 ; her 
father's visits to in 1580, 210, 
211; Philip's residence with, in 
1580, 210-219; "The Arca- 
dia," written for her, 213 ; her 
version of ' ' The Psalms of 
David," 218 ; her editing of 
" The Arcadia," 264, 265 ; 
Philip's bequest to, 347 ; her 
later career, 359 
Herbert, Philip, 291 
Herbert, William, first Earl of 

Pembroke, 129, 130 
Herbert, William, third Earl of 
Pembroke, 210 



INDEX. 



373 



Hohenlo, or " Hollock," Count, 
his relief of Grave, 330 ; his 
jealousy of Sidney, 331 ; his 
quarrel with Edward Norris, 
338. 339 

' ' Holinshed's Chronicle, " quoted, 
10, 334, 335 

Holland. See Netherlands 

Hooker, Richard, 188 

Howard, Henry, Earl of Surrey, 
188, 256, 273 

Howard, Philip, Earl of Arundel, 
232 

Hudson, Henry, the navigator, 
161 

Hungary, Sidney in, 69 

Huntingdon, the Earl and Coun- 
tess of. See Hastings, Henry 



Ireland, Sir Henry Sidney's ser- 
vices in, 18, 19, 31-36, 41, 42, 
48, 97, 103, 106-108, 132, 146, 
150, 226, 279 ; Philip Sidney 
in, 106-109; Philip's proposed 
employment in, 278-280 

Italy, Sidney in, 70-81 



J 



James II. of Scotland, Sidney's 
interest in his movements, 
306-309 

John of Austria, Don, 77, 113, 
116 ; Sidney's meeting with, at 
Louvain, 115 

John Casimir. See Casimir, John 

Jonson, Ben, 276, 291 ; his ac- 
count of Penshurst, 16, 17 ; on 
The "Arcadia," 267 



Kemp, William, the actor, 324 //. 

Kenilworth Castle, Sir Henry 
and Philip Sidney's visit to, 
40; the " princely pleasures" 
at, 95, 96, 190, 191 



Kirke, Edward, or E. K., Sid- 
ney's and Spenser's friend, 
199, 201, 204 
Knollys, Sir Francis, 146 
Knollys, Lettice. See Devereux, 
Lettice 



" Lady of May, The," Sidney's, 
142-144, 187, 188, 255 

Lane, Ralph, Governor of Vir- 
ginia, 298 ; Sidney's befriend- 
ing of, 299 ; his letters to Sid- 
ney, 299, 314 

Langham, John, the actor, 193 

Langham, Robert, a " servant " 
of the Earl of Leicester, 191- 

193 

Languet, Hubert, his early career, 
66, 67 ; Sidney's friendship with 
him at Frankfort, 66-68 ; takes 
Sidney to Vienna, 68, 69 ; Sid- 
ney's correspondence with him 
while in Italy, 69, 72-77, 79- 
81 ; with Sidney in Vienna, 82, 
83; at Prague, 84, 118; and 
at Frankfort, 85 ; other letters 
to Sidney, 85, 86, 98, 99, 137 ; 
Sidney's meeting with him in 
Germany in 1577, 119, 120, 
123, 126 ; his opinions on 
Frobisher's discoveries, 159 ; 
on Sidney's proposed service 
in the Netherlands, 165, 166, 
343 ; later letters to Sidney, 
168, 169, 1S1, 185, 186, 211, 
212, 222 ; his visit to England 
in 1579, 172-174; in charge of 
Robert Sidney, 175 ; his death, 
253, 271 ; his influence on Sid- 
ney, 301 

Lauterburg, Sidney 3t, 124, 125 

Lee, Sir Henry, 114 

Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl 
of. See Dudley, Robert 

Leicester, Robert Sidney, Earl 
of. See Sidney, Robert 

Leicester House, London, 97 ; 
Sidney at, 98, 104, 131, 137, 



374 



INDEX. 



193, 197-199* 207, 213, 225, 
228 
" Leicester's Commonwealth," 

275 
Lepanto, the battle of, 77 
Lewis, Elector Palatine, 113, 

116 ; Sidney's visit to, at 

Neustadt, 124 
Lewis of Nassau, Count, Sidney's 

friendship with, 66, 78 ; his 

death, 79 
Lewis William of Nassau, Count, 

at Zutphen, 340 
Lichtenstein, Baron Henry of, 

Sidney's friendship with, 139 
Lincoln, Earl of. See Clinton, 

Edward 
Litchfield, Nicholas, author of 

"De Re Militari," 277 
Lobetius, Dr., Sidney's acquaint- 
ance with, 85 
Loch, Michael, his share in the 

Cathay Company, 153, 155, 

161 
Lock, Sir William, the London 

merchant, 153 
Lorraine, Sidney in, 64, 65 
Louvain, Sidney at, 115 
Low Countries. See Netherlands 
Ludlow Castle, Sir Henry Sidney 

at, 21, 26, 35, 37, 88, 150, 226, 

227 ; his heart interred at, 334 ; 

Philip Sidney at, 40 
Lyly, John, 188 ; his " Euphues," 

'260, 266, 267 



M 



McConnell, James, of Ulster, 
killed by Sir Henry Sidney, 19 

Madox, Griffin, Sidney's servant 
and friend, 70 ; Sidney's be- 
quest to, 348 ; at Sidney's 
burial, 356 

Malby, Sir Nicholas, 279 

Manners, Edward, third Earl of 
Rutland, 49 

Manners, Elizabeth, Countess of 
Rutland, Sir Philip Sidney's 



daughter, her birth, 289 ; her 

father's bequest to, 347 ; her 

later career, 359 
Manners, John, fourth Earl of 

Rutland, 290 
Manners, Roger, fifth Earl of 

Rutland, married to Sidney's 

widow, 359 
Manners, Roger, uncle of the 

above, 289 
Margaret of Anjou, her marriage 

with Henry of Navarre, 61, 62 ; 

her opinion of the Duke of 

Anjou, 252 
Marlowe, Christopher, 188 
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, 

Sir Henry Sidney's mission to, 

22 ; Sir Philip's interest in her 

movements, 306-308 
Mary Tudor, Queen of England, 

13, 14, 18, 19 
Maurice of Nassau, Count, the 

son of William of Orange, 323 ; 

his share in Sidney's capture 

of Axel, 332, 333 
Maximilian II., Emperor of Ger- 
many, 82 ; Sidney at his Court, 

82, 84, 118 ; his death, 112 
Melancthon, Languet's friend 

and teacher, 66 
Meta Incognita, Frobisher's, 154- 

161 
Michael, The, Frobisher's 

barque, 153-156 
Middelburg, Sidney at, 324 
" Mirror for Magistrates, The," 

188, 256 
Molyneux, Edmund, Sir Henry 

Sidney's secretary, 91, 147-150; 

Philip Sidney's anger with, 147; 

his memoirs of Sir Henry and 

Lady Sidney, 334, 335 
Montemayor's " Diana," 260, 261 
Montmorenci, Duke of, his mis- 
sion to London, 59 
More, Sir Thomas, Sidney on, 

80 ; his " Utopia," 260 
Mornay. See Du Plessis-Mornay, 

Philip 
Muscovy Company, the, 156 



INDEX. 



375 



N 



Nash, Thomas, 202 ; his praise 
of Sidney, 276 

Nassau, Lewis, Lewis William, 
and Maurice of. See Lewis, 
Lewis William, and Maurice 

Netherlands, the, Spanish perse- 
cution in, 78, 79, 81, 83, 112, 
113, 115, 116 ; Sidney's first 
visit to, 127 ; Sidney's project 
for fighting in, under William 
of Orange in 1578, 163-166 ; 
John Casimir's employment in, 
163, 172 ; William of Orange's 
sovereignty in, 223-225, 300, 
302 ; Sidney's second visit to, 
251-253, 278 ; its desperate 
condition in 1585, 303 ; Sid- 
ney's plan for aiding, 303, 304, 
306, 313, 314; the appeal of 
its people to Queen Elizabeth, 
312 ; her promise to protect 
them, 312, 313, 315 ; Sidney's 
services and death in, 321-350 

Neustadt, Sidney at, 124 

Newfoundland, Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert's expedition to, 295 

Newhaven, Sir Henry Sidney at, 
22, 23 

Nimeguen, the battle of, 79 

Norris, Edward, Sidney's com- 
rade in the Netherlands, 339 

Norris, Sir John, Sidney's com- 
rade in the Netherlands, 330, 
340, 341, 353 

Norris, Lord, Queen Elizabeth's 
treasurer in the Netherlands, 
326 

Northumberland, Duke and 
Duchess of. See Dudley, John 
and Jane 

North-west Passage to the Indies, 
projects for discovering a, and 
vSidney's share in them, 151- 
161 



Oatlands, Sidney at, 133 
O'Neill, Shane, the Captain of 



Tyrone, Sir Henry Sidney's 

war with, 32, 33, 35 
Orange, William, Prince of. See 

William 
Ormond, Earl of. See Butler, 

Thomas 
Oxford, the seventeenth Earl of. 

See De Vere, Edward 
Oxford University, Sir Henry 

Sidney at, 26, 37, 40 ; Philip's 

education at, 37-41, 50, 51, 53; 

Giordano Bruno at, 292 



Padua, Sidney at, 75, 76 

Pagenham, Sir William, 9 

Palatinate of the Rhine, the, 79, 
112, 113, 116, 117, 124 

Paris, Sir Henry Sidney in, 22 ; 
Philip's visit to, 57-64 

Parker, Archbishop, 39 

Parliament, Sidney's share in the 
work of, during the session of 
1581, 229-231 ; and the session 
of 1584-5, 298, 305, 306 

Parma, Alexander Earnese, Duke 
of, the Spanish Viceroy in the 
Netherlands, 223, 224, 303, 
325^330, 336 

Paul Veronese, Sidney's friend- 
ship with, 73 ; his portrait of 
Sidney, 76, 85 - 

Peckham, Sir George, 295 ; his 
plans for American colonisa- 
tion, 297, 305 

Peckham, Sir William, 284 

Pelham, Sir William, 311, 338 ; 
at Zutphen, 341 

Pembroke, the Earls and the 
Countess of. See Herbert 

Pembroke College, Oxford, 39, 

145 
Penshurst Place, Kent, granted 
to Sir William Sidney, 8, 14 ; 
Philip Sidney born at, 15, 16; 
Lady Sidney at, 17, 23, 24, 42 ; 
Philip at, 98, 137, 177, 199, 
207, 268 ; its enlargement, 177, 
198 ; Sir Henry Sidney's burial 



37^ 



INDEX. 



at, 334 ; Lady Sidney's death 
and burial at, 335 

Perkyn, John, the actor, 193 

Perrot, Francois, Sidney's friend- 
ship with, 72 

Perrott, Sir John, Lord Deputy 
of Ireland, 293 

Perrott, Thomas, at Sidney's 
burial, 356 

Perrott, Sir William, at Zutphen, 

341 
Philip II. of Spain, escorted to 
England by Sir Henry Sidney, 

14 ; Philip Sidney's godfather, 

15 ; his crusade against the 
Turks, 77, 78 ; his war in the 
Netherlands, 78, 79, 112, 113, 
223-225, 300, 303 

Philip Lewis of Hanau, Count, 

Sidney's friendship with, in 

Italy, 72, 76 ; Sidney's letters 

to, 86, 139 
Plessis-Mornay, Philip Du. See 

Du Plessis-Mornay 
Plymouth, Sidney at, 317, 318 
" Poesy, the Defence of." See 

" Defence of Poesy," Sidney's 
Portsmouth, Sir Henry Sidney 

at, 22 
Poyntz, Giles, 55 
Poyntz, Nicholas, 55 
Prague, Sidney at, 84, 113, 118- 

123 
Presburg, Sidney at, 69 
Preston, Thomas, author of 

"Cambises," 197 
Pugliano, John Peter, Sidney's 

instructor in horsemanship, 83 



R 



Raleigh, Sir Walter, 181, 188 ; 
with Sidney at Antwerp, 251 ; 
his colony of Virginia, 295, 
298, 314 

Rammekins Castle, Sidney Gov- 
ernor of, 313, 320, 322 

Ratcliffe, Frances, Countess of 
Sussex, Sidney's aunt, 9, 10, 
173 ; Sidney's bequest to, 347 



Ratcliffe, Thomas, Lord Fitz- 
walter, afterwards Earl of 
Sussex, 9 ; Lord Deputy of 
Ireland, 18, 19, 32 ; Lord 
Chamberlain, 149 ; Sidney's 
bequest to, 348 

Rich, Lady, her early acquaint- 
ance with Philip Sidney when 
she was Lady Penelope Dever- 
eux, 96, 105 ; the project for 
their marriage, 105, 108, 109, 
170, 171, 360; her marriage 
with Lord Rich, 237-239 ; 
Sidney's sonnets on, 236, 237, 
240, 245, 272-274 ; Spenser's 
references to, 244 ; her later 
history, 239, 241, 242 

Rich, Lord Chancellor, 238 

Rich, the second Lord, 238 

Rich, the third Lord, his marriage 
with Penelope Devereux, 238, 
239, 241, 242 ; Sidney's sonnets 
on, 240 

Richmond Palace, Sidney at, 
132, 137 

Roanoke, Virginia, 298 

Rochester, Sidney at, 128 

Rochester Bridge, 305 

Rodway, Richard, merchant 
tailor of London, 100 

Rotterdam, Sidney at, 324, 327 

Rudolph II., Emperor of Ger- 
many, 112, 118 ; Sidney's 
visit to, 118-121 

" Ruins of Time," Spenser's, 
277, 282 

Russell, John, Earl of Bedford, 
14 ; Sidney's godfather, 15 

Russell, Sir William, at Zutphen, 
344 ; Sidney's bequest to, 348 

Rutland, the Earls and the Coun- 
tess of. See Manners 



Sackville, Thomas, Lord Buck- 
hurst, 189, 256 

Saint Bartholomew, the Massacre 
of, 62-64, 66, 67, 301 



INDEX. 



377 



Saint Patrick's Hole, Sidney's 
account of, 123 

Saint Paul's Cathedral, Sidney's 
burial in, 358, 359 n. 

Sanazarro's "Arcadia," 260 

" School of Abuse," Gosson's, 
204, 205, 257 

Scott, Sir Thomas, 291 

Shakespeare, William, 188, 191, 
210, 266, 276, 324 n., 360 

" Shepherd's Calendar," Spen- 
ser's, Sidney's remark on, 257 ; 
quoted, I, 199 

Shrewsbury, Sidney's schooling 
at, 25-31, 37 

Shrewsbury, the Earl of. See 
Talbot, George 

Sidney, Ambrosia, Philip's sister, 
her birth, 17 ; Queen Eliza- 
beth's letter on her death, 88 

Sidney, Anne, Sir Philip's grand- 
mother, 9 

Sidney, Anne, Sir Philip's aunt. 
See Fitzwilliam, Lady 

Sidney, Elizabeth, Sir Philip's 
daughter. See Manners, Eliza- 
beth 

Sidney, Frances, Philip's aunt. 
See Ratcliffe, Frances 

Sidney, Lady Frances, Sir Phil- 
ip's wife, Sidney's " exceeding 
like to be good friend," 285 ; 
her relations with John Wick- 
erson, 2S8//./ her marriage to 
Sidney, 285-289 ; a jewel for 
her, 294 ; with her husband in 
the Netherlands, 329, 330, 
332 71.; her husband's bequest 
to, 347 ; her illness, 351, 352 ; 
afterwards Countess of Essex 
and Countess of Clanricarde, 

359 
Sidney, Sir Henry, Sir Philip's 
father, his birth in 1529, 9 ; 
under Edward VI., 9-13 ; his 
marriage in 15 51, 11 ; his en- 
couragement of maritime enter- 
prise, 152 ; his share in the 
Lady Jane Grey plot, 12, 13 ; 
under Queen Mary, 13-15, 17 ; 



his first employment in Ire- 
land, 18. 19, 21 ; Lord Presi- 
dent of Wales from 1560 to 
1585, 21, 26, 34, 35, 88, 150, 
226, 334 ; his missions to Paris 
and Edinburgh, 22 ; employ- 
ments in England in 1562 and 
1563, 22 ; his first letter to 
Philip, 27 ; Lord Deputy of 
Ireland from 1565 to 1567, 31- 
34, 35, 37 ; at Hampton Court 
in 1567, 34 ; again Lord Dep- 
uty of Ireland from 1565 to 
I57L 35, 36, 4L 42, 48; at 
Oxford, 37, 40 ; at Kenil- 
worth, 40, 95 ; Elizabeth's 
condolence with, on the death 
of his daughter Ambrosia, 88 ; 
his third lord deputyship of 
Ireland, from 1575 to 1578, 
97, 103, 106-108, 132, 146, 
150, 226 ; on his daughter 
Mary's marriage to the Earl of 
Pembroke, 130, 131 ; Philip's 
defence of his Irish policy, 
132-137 ; his return to Eng- 
land, 146, 147 ; at Hampton 
Court in 1578, 150; on Phil- 
ip's project for going to the 
Netherlands in 1578, 164 ; at 
Hampton Court in 1579, 171 ; 
in attendance on Prince John 
Casimir, 172, 175 ; his praise 
of Philip, 176 ; his visits to 
Wilton in 1580, 210, 211 ; his 
death and burial in 1585, 334 

Sidney, Lucy, Sir Philip's aunt. 
See Harrington, Lady 

Sidney, Margaret, Sir Philip's 
sister, 16, 17 

Sidney, Lady Mary, Sir Philip's 
mother, her birth, 8 ; her early 
friendship with Queen Eliza- 
beth, 9, 19 ; her marriage, 11 ; 
at Penshurst, 15, 17, 23 ; in 
attendance on Queen Eliza- 
beth, 18, 19, 20, 21 ; her 
small-pox, 23 ; her letter to 
Philip, 30 ; in Ireland with 
her husband, 31, 34 I at Court, 



378 



INDEX. 



43, 54, 88; her "hard dis- 
tress " at a proposed peerage for 
Sir Henry, 54, 55 ; at Chis- 
wick, 91, 92 ; at Kenilworth, 
95 ; her poverty, 100 ; her 
New Year present to Queen 
Elizabeth in 1578, 140, 141 ; 
her chamber at Hampton 
Court, 149, 150 ; her New- 
Year present to the Queen in 
1579, 171 ; her patronage of 
Robert Langham, 192, 193 ; 
godmother to Philip Herbert, 
291 ; her death, 335 

Sidney, Mary, Sir Philip's aunt. 
See Dormer, Lady 

Sidney, Mary, Sir Philip's sister. 
See Herbert, Mary, Countess 
of Pembroke 

Sidney, Sir Philip, eldest son 

of Sir Henry Sidney 
Events of his Life: 

1554 Born at Penshurst on 
30th October, 15 ; early 
training there, 16-18, 24 

1564 Appointed rector of 
Whitford in May, 24, 25 ; 
sent to Shrewsbury School in 
November, 25 ; his work 
there, 26-31 

1568 Removed to Christ 
Church College, Oxford, 37 ; 
his occupations there till 

1571, 37-39. 4i, 50, 51, 53; 
at Kenilworth and Ludlow 
with his father in August, 
40 ; at Plampton Court with 
Sir William Cecil for Christ- 
mas, 43 

1569 A marriage proposed 
between him and Anne Cecil 
43 ; correspondence on the 
subject, 43-47 

1570 The marriage project 
abandoned, 47, 48 

157 1 At court and elsewhere, 

53 

1572 Goes to Paris in May, 
57 ; attached to Charles 



TX's Court, 60; makes the 
acquaintance of Wal sing- 
ham, 60 ; witnesses the St. 
Bartholomew Massacre in 
August, 61-64 \ goes to 
Lorraine in September, 64, 

65 

1573 At Strasburg and Hei- 
delberg, and, in March, at 
Frankfort, 65 ; where he 
meets Hubert Languet, 66, 
67 ; with whom he goes to 
Vienna in the summer, 68 ; 
visits Hungary, 69 ; and 
afterwards goes to Italy, 69, 
70 

1 574 Spends several months 
in Venice, 71-81 ; where he 
studies astronomy and a lit- 
tle music, 73, 7.4 ; some 
geometry, 74 ; history, litera- 
ture, and languages, 74, 78 ; 
and keeps careful watch on 
political occurrences, 77-80 ; 
makes acquaintance with 
Philip Lewis of Hanau, 72- 
76 ; Tintoretto, 73 ; and 
Paul Veronese, 73 ; who 
paints his portrait, 76, 85 ; 
visits Padua and Genoa, 75, 
76 ; is ill at Venice in July, 
80 ; after which, returns to 
Vienna to winter there, 82 ; 
visiting Poland in the au- 
tumn, 82 ; at Vienna he is 
at the Court of Maximilian, 

82 ; where he is taught 
horsemanship by Pugliano, 

83 ; and reads classics with 
Languet, 98 

1575 Goes to Prague in Feb- 
ruary or March, 84 ; returns 
to England by way of Dres- 
den, Heidelberg, Strasburg, 
Frankfort, and Antwerp, 85, 
86 ; reaches London in May, 
86 ; and becomes a favorite 
at Court, 88, 90, 92-94 ; is 
at Kenilworth in July, 95 ; 
at Chartley in August, 96, 



INDEX. 



379 



g7 ; and in London in No- 
vember, 98 ; much at Court, 
98-101 ; and with the Earl 
of Essex, 101, 104, 105 

1576 Visits his father in Ire- 
land in July, 106-108 ; is in 
London again in November, 
109 ; proposals for his mar- 
riage with Lady Penelope 
Devereux, 108, 110 ; a sub- 
scriber to Martin Frobisher's 
expedition in search of a 
North-west Passage to the 
Indies, 153 

1577 Sent as Ambassador to 
Germany, in ; leaves Lon- 
don in February, 113, 114 ; 
visits Don Juan of Austria at 
Louvain in March, 115; 
meets Prince John Casimir 
at Heidelberg, 116, 117 ; 
proceeds to Prague, 118 ; 
there he expostulates with 
the Emperor Rudolph, 119- 
121 ; and meets the Empress 
Dowager of Germany and 
the Queen Dowager of 
France, 121, 122 ; other oc- 
cupations at Prague, 123 ; 
on his way homeward in 
May he visits the Elector 
Lewis at Neustadt, 124 ; the 
Landgrave William of 
Hesse, 125 ; and William 
of Orange at Dordrecht, 
127 ; returns to London in 
June, 128 ; at Greenwich 
and Richmond with the 
Queen, 128, 132 ; with his 
sister, the new Countess of 
Pembroke, at Wilton, in 
July and August, 131, 132, 
137 ; at Oatlands in Septem- 
ber with the Court, 133 ; his 
quarrel with the earl of Or- 
mond there, 133 ; his letter 
to the Queen in defence of 
his father's Irish policy, 134- 
136 ; with the Court at Rich- 
mond and elsewhere during 



the winter, 137 ; his friend- 
ship with Philip du Plessis- 
Mornay and others, 13S, 
139 : his interest in Martin 
Frobisher's expeditions, 154- 
160 

1578 His interchange of New- 
Year presents with the 
Queen, 140, 141 ; his " In- 
dian project " in March, 
162 ; with the Court at 
Theobalds in April, 142 ; at 
Wanstead, where his ' ' Lady 
of May " is performed, 142- 
144, 254 ; writes an angry 
letter to Edmund Molyneux 
in May, 147 ; at Greenwich 
and elsewhere in June and 
July, 145; his project for tak- 
ing service in the Nether- 
lands, 164 ; is appointed to 
some office under the Queen, 
168 ; at Audley End in July, 
where he meets Gabriel Har- 
vey, 145, 187, 195 ; soon 
afterwards becomes ac- 
quainted with Edmund 
Spenser, 197 ; is president 
of the Areopagus, 200, 256 ; 
spends Christmas with his 
parents at Hampton Court, 
171 

1579 Again exchanges New- 
Year presents with the 
Queen, 171 ; in January and 
February helps to entertain 
John Casimir and Languet 
during their visit to London, 
172-174; William of 
Orange's opinion of him, 
175 ; his position at Court, 

" 176 ; his opposition to the 
Queen's project for marrying 
the Duke of Anjou, 178 ; 
his quarrel with the Earl of 
Oxford in September, 179- 
182 ; his relations with 
Spenser, and their literary 
exercises, 198-203, 256 ; 
probably writes " The De- 



380 



INDEX. 



fence of Poesy " about this 
time, 205, 206, 256-259 

1580 In January, he writes a 
letter to the Queen, con- 
demning her proposed mar- 
riage, 182-185 J which 
brings him into disgrace, 
185 ; he passes several 
months in retirement at 
Wilton, 210; where he 
writes part of ' ' The Arca- 
dia," 213-217 ; also assists 
his sister in translating 
" The Psalms of David," 
218 ; returns to Court in the 
autumn, 213, 220, 222 ; his 
occupations there, 224-226 ; 
is appointed steward of the 
Bishop of Winchester, 228 

1 5 81 His New- Year presents 
to the Queen, 229 ; work 
as a member of Parliament 
between January and March, 
229-231 ; his share in a 
tournament at Whitehall in 
May, 232-235 ; his occu- 
pations and position at 
Court, 236, 245-248, 250 ; 
appropriations and sinecures 
granted to him, 249 ; spends 
Christmas at Wilton, 251 ; 
probably writes much of 
"The Arcadia" and of 
" Astrophel and Stella" in 
this year, 259-274 

1582 At Whitehall in January, 
251 ; and in February ac- 
companies the Duke of 
Anjou to Antwerp, 251-253, 
278 ; returns to Court in 
March, 278 ; proposed em- 
ployment in Ireland, 278- 
280 ; in Wales in the sum- 
mer, 2S0 ; at Wilton in 
November and December, 
280 ; at Court for Christmas, 
281 

1583 His New-Year present 
to the Queen, 281 ; knighted 
in January, 2S1 ; office to, 



promised him as joint Mas- 
ter of the Ordnance with the 
Earl of Warwick, whom he 
helps in that capacity, 282- 
284 ; expected in March to 
be appointed Captain of the 
Isle of Wight, 284 ; a Gen- 
eral of the Horse, 284 ; ob- 
tains a grant of undiscovered 
land in America, and assigns 
part of it to Sir George 
Peckham, 295-297 ; married 
to Frances Walsingham in 
September, 285-289 ; at 
Court, and often at Walsing- 
ham House and Barn Elms 
during the next two years, 
289, 290 
1584 Miscellaneous occupa- 
tions, 290, 291 ; his friend- 
ship with Giordano Bruno, 
291, 292 ; his proposed mis- 
sion to France in July, 301, 
302 ; his plans for opposing 
Spain, 303-305 ; his interest 
in Scottish affairs, 306-309 ; 
his work as a member of 
Parliament in November 
and December, 298, 305 

1555 Further work in Parlia- 
ment in February and 
March, 305 ; formally ap- 
pointed in July to share the 
mastership of ordnance with 
the Earl of Warwick, 283, 
310, 311 ; his proposed ex- 
pedition with Sir Francis 
Drake to the West Indies, 
314-317 ; recalled from 
Plymouth by the Queen in 
September, 318, 319 ; ap- 
pointed Governor of Flush- 
ing in November, 320, 321 ; 
his movements there and in 
other parts of the Nether- 
lands, 322-324, 326 

1556 Anxious to "make a 
noble war," 327 ; correspond- 
ence on his difficulties, 325- 
330 ; in February endeavours 



INDEX. 



381 



to besiege Steenbergen, 330 ; 
appointed Colonel of the 
Zeeland Horse, 331 ; sur- 
prises and takes Axel in 
July, 332, 333 ; at Arnhem, 
and elsewhere, 336 ; at 
Flushing in August, 337, 

338 ; at Geertruidenberg, 

339 ; at Arnhem again, 339 ; 
at the taking of Doesburg, 
340 ; joins the fight at Zut- 
phen on 21st September, 
and is wounded there, 340- 
344 ; conveyed to Arnhem, 
344 ; his illness there, 344- 
349 ; his will, 346-348 ; his 
death on the 17th October, 
350 ; the removal of his 
body to London, 353, 354 ; 
obstacles to his burial, 354, 

355 
1587 His burial in February, 
355~358 
Letters written by him to 

Sir William Cecil, afterwards 
Lord Burghley, 50, 51, 82, 
116, 124, 282, 310, 327 

the Earl of Leicester, 65, 66, 
79, 82, 116, 124, 211, 280, 
322, 323, 327, 330 

Hubert Languet, 73, 75, 79, 
81, 98, 141, 155, 157, 158, 
162, 169 

Count Philip Lewis of Hanau, 
86, 139 

Queen Elizabeth, in defence of 
his father's Irish policy, 
134-136 ; in opposition to 
her proposed marriage with 
the Duke of Anjou, 182-185 

Sir Henry Sidney, 137 

Edmund Molyneux, 147 

Robert Sidney, 176, 213, 225, 
226, 235 

Sir Christopher Hatton, 181 

Sir P'rancis Walsingham, 285, 
290, 324 «., 326, 327, 328- 
330, 332 n., 337, 338 

the Earl of Rutland, 290 



Sir Edward Stafford, 295 
the Privy Council, 237 
Belarius, 346 
John Wier, 349 

Letters written to him by 

Sir Henry Sidney, 27, 164 
Lady Mary Sidney, 30 
Hubert Languet, 69, 74, 77, 
80, 81, 85, 98, 99, 126, 138, 

159, 165-169, 172, 174, 181, 
185, 186, 211-213, 222 

Edmund Molyneux, 148 
Ralph Lane, 309, 314 
Lord Burghley, 310 
Queen Elizabeth, 318, 319, 
345 

His Writings. 

" The Lady of May," 142-144, 

160, 188, 200, 254 

" The Defence of Poesy," 83, 

205, 206, 255-260 
" The Countess of Pembroke's 

Arcadia," 67, 203, 207, 213- 

217, 225, 235,247, 253, 255- 

257, 259-272, 274, 346 
" Astrophel and Stella," 225, 

236, 237, 240, 241, 245, 247, 

255, 256, 272-274 
Miscellaneous verse, 220, 221, 

248, 274, 346, 349 
" A Discourse in Defence of 

the Earl of Leicester," 274, 

275 
Translations : with the Coun- 
tess of Pembroke, "The 
Psalms of David," 118; 
with Arthur Golding, ' The 
Trueness of the Christian 
Religion," 138, 275 
Sidney, Robert, Earl of Leicester, 
Sir Philip's brother, his birth, 
18, 24 ; his education, 38 ; an 
early marriage project for, 56 ; 
his foreign travels, I75 -I 77> 
226 ; Philip's letters to, 176, 
213, 225, 226, 235 ; his mar- 
riage, 291 ; his services in the 



382 



INDEX. 



Netherlands, 323, 340 ; at Zut- 
phen, 341, 35° ; at Philip's 
death-bed, 344, 35° \ Philip's 
bequest to, 347 ; at Philip's 
burial, 357 ; his later career, 359 
Sidney, Thomas, Sir Philip's 
brother, his birth, 18, 45 n.; 
his services in the Netherlands, 
323 ; at Zutphen, 341 ; at 
Philip's death-bed, 344 ; 
Philip's bequest to, 347 ; at 
Philip's burial, 357 ; after- 
wards, 359 
Sidney, Sir William, grandfather 

of Sir Philip, 6, 7, 10, 14 
Sidney, Sussex College, Cam- 
bridge, founded by Sidney's 
aunt, 10 
Somerset, Lord Protector, 8, 10 
Somerset House, London, 173 
Spenser, Edmund, 188 ; his early 
friendship with Gabriel Har- 
vey, 196 ; friendship with Sid- 
ney, 196-201, 204 ; his " Shep- 
herd's Calendar," 199, 206, 
257 ; his share in the Areopa- 
gus, 200-203, 254 ; his and 
Sidney's influence on one an- 
other, 206-208, 214 ; his 
" Fairy Queen," 207, 208, 214 ; 
his praise of the Countess of 
Pembroke, 210 ; his employ- 
ment in Ireland, 219, 295 ; his 
praise of Sidney, 277 ; quota- 
tions from "The Shepherd's 
Calendar," 1, 199 ; " The 
Fairy Queen," 208; " Astro- 
phel," 218, 244 ; other verse, 
202, 210, 245, 246, 282 
Stafford, Sir Edward, ambassador 

in Paris, 295, 303 
Stanley, Sir William, at Zutphen, 

341 
Steenbergen, Sidneys designs 

against, 330 
Stella. See Rich, Lady 
Stephen Bathori, King of Poland, 

224, 225 
Stephens, Henry and Robert. 

See Etienne 



Still, John, Bishop of Bath and 
Wells, 196 

Strasburg, Sidney at, 65, 85 

Surrey, the Earl of. See Howard, 
Henry 

Sussex, the Earl and the Coun- 
tess of . See Ratcliffe 



Talbot, George, sixth Earl of 
Shrewsbury, 174 

Talbot, Gilbert, his gossip from 
the Court, 91, 174 

Tarleton, Richard, the actor, 
Sidney's friendship with, 193, 
194 

Temple, William, Sidney's secre- 
tary in the Netherlands, 321 

Terneusen, Sidney at, 332 

Theatre, the, at Shoreditch, 193, 

195 
Theobalds, Sidney at, 142 
Thornton, Dr. Thomas, Sidney's 

tutor at Oxford, 38, 51 
Tintoretto, Sidney's friendship 

with, 73 
Tower of London, the, imprison- 
ment of the Duke of Northum- 
berland and his sons in, 14 ; 
Prince John Casimir at, 172 
Trevor, Dr., of Chester, 147 
Trinity College, Cambridge, 39 
Tyrone, the Captain of, 32, 33 



U 



Underdown, Thomas, the trans- 
lator of Heliodorus, 260 

United Provinces. See Nether- 
lands 

Ursinus, Dr. Zacharius, Sidney's 
acquaintance with, 85 

" Utopia," Sir Thomas M ore's, 
260 

Utrecht, Sidney at, 330 ; Lady 
Frances Sidney at, 351 



INDEX, 



383 



Venice, Sidney in, 71-81 
Vienna, Sidney in, 68, 69, 82-84 
" Vindiciae contra Tyrannos," 67 
Virginia, Raleigh's colony of, 
298, 305, 314 



\Y 



Wales, Sir Henry Sidney's ser- 
vices in, as Lord President, 21, 
26, 35, 88, 150, 210, 2H, 226, 
227, 334 

Walsingham, Frances. See Sid- 
ney, Lady Frances 

Walsingham, Sir Francis, Philip 
Sidney's introduction to, 57 ; 
his early career, 59, 60 ; pro- I 
tects Philip in Paris, 60, 63, 64; j, 
his interest in Philip while in 
Germany, 84 ; his place as a 
courtier, 94 ; Philip's letters to 
him from Heidelberg, 116, 
117 ; his commendation of 
Philip's embassage in Germany, 
128 ; his share in Frobisher's 
expeditions 153 ; his mission 
to Paris in 1582, 250; his aid 
in Philip's advancement, 283- 
285, 287 ; Philip's marriage 
with his daughter, 285-289 ; 
other relations with Sidney, 
290, 291 ; his diplomacy in 
Scotland, 307, 309 ; Sidney's 
letters to from the Netherlands, 
326-330, 332 n., 337, 338 ; 
Sidney's bequest to, 347 ; his 
arrangements for Sidney's 
burial, 354, 355 ; his own death 
and burial, 359 

Walsingham, Mary, younger 
daughter of the above, 318 

Walsingham, Lady, 385 n.j 
Sidney's bequest to, 347 

Walsingham House, Sidney at, 
289, 290 

Wanstead, Sidney at, 142-144 ; 
187 ; John Casimir at, 173 



Warnsfeld, near Zutphen, 340, 
341 

Warwick, Ambrose Dudley, Earl 
of. See Dudley, Ambrose 

Warwick, John Dudley, Earl of. 
See Dudley, John 

Waterhouse, Edward, in the ser- 
vice of Sir Henry Sidney, 107, 
109, no, 133, 136 ; at Sidney's 
burial, 356 

Watson, Dr., afterwards Bishop 
of Winchester, 64 

Wechel, Andrew, the Frankfort 
printer, 96 

Wentworth, Peter, 229, 230 

West Indies, Sidney's proposed 
expedition to, 314-319 

Whitehall, 20, 98, 104, 173, 251 ; 
Sidney's quarrel with the Earl 
of Oxford at, 179-182 ; the 
tournament at, in 1581, 232- 

235 
Whitford, in Wales, Philip Sid- 
ney lay-rector of, 24, 25, 46, 

101, 228 
Wickerson, John, his relations 

with Frances Walsingham, 

288, n. 
Wight, the Isle of, Sidney 

thought of as Captain of, 284 
Wier, Dr. John, Sidney's letter 

to, on his death-bed, 349 
Will, Sir Philip Sidney's, 346- 

349, 354, 355 

William, Landgrave of Hesse, 
Sidney's visit to, 125 

William of Orange, the leader 
of the Netherlanders' revolt 
against Spain, 78, 79, 113, 
116 ; Sidney's visit to, at Dor- 
drecht, 127 ; his message to 
Queen Elizabeth about Sidney, 
175 ; his sovereignty over the 
Protestant provinces, 223, 224, 
251, 252, 324 ; his assassina- 
tion, 300, 302 

Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 152 

Willoughby, Lord, Sidney's com- 
rade in the Netherlands, 332 ; 
At the Zutphen fight, 341, 



3^4 



INDEX. 



342 ; Sidney's bequest to, 349 ; 

at Sidney's burial, 357 
Wilson, Dr. Thomas, Ambassador 

in the Netherlands, 115 
Wilson, Thomas, the actor, 194 
Wilton House, 130, 209, 268 ; 

Sidney at, 131, 132, 137, 209- 

211, 213, 218, 249, 280, 286, 

291 
Winchester, the stewardship to 

the Bishop of, held by Sidney, 

228 
Windsor, Sidney at, 136, 137, 

281 
Woodstock, Queen Elizabeth at, 

96 



Worcester, Sir Henry Sidney's 
death at, 334 

Wotton, Sir Edward, Sidney's 
companion in Vienna, 83 ; his 
marriage, 99 ; Ambassador in 
Scotland, 308, 309 ; Sidney's 
bequest to, 348 ; at Sidney's 
burial, 357 

Wyatt, Sir Thomas, the elder, 
188, 273 

Wylson, Robert, the actor, 193 



Zutphen, 340 ; the fight at, 341- 
343 



TLhe Stotnp of tbe 1Ration& 



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The following volumes are now ready (November, 1891): 

THE STORY OF GREECE. Prof. Jas. A. Harrison. 

" ROME. Arthur Gilman. 

" THE JEWS. Prof. James K. Hosmer. 

" CHALDEA. Z. A. Ragozin. 

" GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould. 

" NORWAY. Hjalmar H. Boyesen. 

" SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan Hale. 

" HUNGARY. Prof. A. Vambery. 

" CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. Church. 

" THE SARACENS. Arthur Oilman. 

" THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stanley Lane-Poole. 

" THE NORMANS. Sarah Orne Jewett. 

" PERSIA. S. G. W. Benjamin. 

" ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof. Geo. Rawlinson. 

" ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Prof. J. P. Mahaffy. 

" ASSYRIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 

" THE GOTHS. Henry Bradley. 

" IRELAND. Hon. Emily Lawless. 

" TURKEY. Stanley Lane-Poole. 

" MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 

" MEDIEVAL FRANCE. Prof. Gustav Masson. 

" HOLLAND. Prof. J. Thorold Rogers. 

" MEXICO. Susan Hale. 

" PHOENICIA. Prof. Geo. Rawlinson. 

" THE HANS A TOWNS. Helen Zimmern. 

" EARLY BRITAIN. Prof. Alfred J. Church. 

" THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. Stanley Lane-Poole. 

" RUSSIA. W. R. Morfill. 

" THE JEWS UNDER ROME. W. D. Morrison. 

" SCOTLAND. John Mackintosh. 

" SWITZERLAND. R. Stead and Mrs. Arnold Hug. 

" " PORTUGAL. H. Morse-Stephens. 

" THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. C. W. C. Oman. 

Now in press for immediate issue : 

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" VEDIC INDIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 
" THE THIRTEEN COLONIES. Helen A. Smith. 
" WALES AND CORNWALL. Owen M. Edwards. 
" CANADA. A. R. Macfarlane. 

G P. PUTNAM'S SONS T. FISHER UNWIN 

New York London 



Iberoes of tbe Battens. 



EDITED BY 



EVELYN ABBOTT M.A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 



A SERIES of biographical studies of the lives and work 
of a number of representative historical characters about 
whom have gathered the great traditions of the Nations 
to which they belonged, and who have been accepted, in 
many instances, as types of the several National ideals. 
With the life of each typical character will be presented 
a picture of the National conditions surrounding him 
during his career. 

The narratives are the work of writers who are recog- 
nized authorities on their several subjects, and, while 
thoroughly trustworthy as history, will present picturesque 
and dramatic " stories " of the Men and of the events con- 
nected with them. 

To the Life of each " Hero " will be given one duo- 
decimo volume, handsomely printed in large type, pro- 
vided with maps and adequately illustrated according to 
the special requirements of the several subjects. The 
volumes will be sold separately as follows : 

Cloth extra . $i 50 

Half morocco, uncut edges, gilt top . . . 1 75 
Large paper, limited to 250 numbered copies for 
subscribers to the series. These may be ob- 
tained in sheets folded, or in cloth, uncut 
edges . -3 5° 



The first group of the Series will comprise twelve 
volumes, as follows : 

Nelson, and the Naval Supremacy of England. By W. Clark Russell, 
author of " The Wreck of the Grosvenor," etc. 

Gustavus Adolphus, and the Struggle of Protestantism for Exist- 
ence. By C. R. L. Fletcher, M.A., late Fellow of All Souls College, 
Oxford. 

Pericles, and the Golden Age of Athens. By Evelyn Abbott, M.A., 
Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 

Theodoric the Goth, the Barbarian Champion of Civilization. By 
Thomas Hodgkin, author of " Italy and Her Invaders," etc. 

Sir Philip Sidney, and the Chivalry of England. By H. R. Fox- 
Bourne, author of " The Life of John Locke," etc. 

Julius Caesar, and the Organization of the Roman Empire. By 

W. Warde Fowler, M.A., Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. 

Alexander the Great, and the Extension of Greek Rule and of 

Greek Ideas. By Prof. Benjamin I. Wheeler, Cornell University. 
Charlemagne, the Reorganizer of Europe. By Prof. George L. Burr, 

Cornell University. 
Cicero, and the Fall of the Roman Republic. By J. L. Strachan 

Davidson, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 
Louis XIV., and the Zenith of the French Monarchy. By Arthur 

Hassall, M.A., Senior Student of Christ Church College, Oxford. 
Sir Walter Raleigh, and the Adventurers of England. By A. L. 

Smith, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 
Bismarck. The New German Empire: How It Arose; What It 

Replaced ; and What It Stands For. By James Sime, author of 

" A Life of Lessing," etc. 

To be followed by : 

Henry of Navarre, and the Huguenots in France By P. F. Willert, 

M.A., Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. 
William of Orange, the Founder of the Dutch Republic. By Ruth 

Putnam. 
Hannibal, and the Struggle between Carthage and Rome. By 

E. A. Freeman, D.C.L., LL.D., Regius Prof, of History in the 

University of Oxford. 
Alfred the Great, and the First Kingdom in England. By F. York 

Powell, M.A., Senior Student of Christ Church College, Oxford. 
Charles the Bold, and the Attempt to Found a Middle Kingdom. 

By R. Lodge, M.A., Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford. 
John Calvin, the Hero of the French Protestants. By Owen M. 

Edwards, Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. 
Oliver Cromwell, and the Rule of the Puritans in England. By 

Charles Firth, Balliol College, Oxford. 
Marlborough, and England as a Military Power. By C. W. C. 

Oman, A.M., Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
New York 7 fc Q ^ London 

27 and 29 West Twenty-third Street ^ O ^P?4 Bedford Street, Strand 



























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